I'm seeing it too -- the predictions about how our changing climate is going to cause a lot of change to everything. I believe it will. And that doesn't scare me even a little. I still think we should go all out with our efforts to do what's possible to slow down the inevitable in homage to the principle of causing the least harm to the greatest number of people (sort of the contrapositive to doing the most good to the most amount of people). Slower change means more time to adjust and adapt, and less strain on every system.
But here's why I'm not scared. Already in the world there are millions living through the hell we envision, any hell we are capable of envisioning. Millions. There's a real, non-zero possibility of me (or you) running into some situation that would rival sort of existence we imagine when our minds conger the scary scenarios of our climate future.
But why I'm not scared? Because we have this life, as has everyone else, to face whatever challenges and struggles life throws at us the best we can. Whether it's personal or the whole community or the whole world, we will live through heartbreak, we will watch loved ones die, we can suffer our own disease and injury, our parents, and sometimes our children, will suffer. And like the billions before us, we'll do what we can to live, love and cope with our lot. This is OUR life, this is our world. It's no worse for any given individual than war is. It's no worse than a painful, slow death by cancer or COVID. In whatever future collective and personal battles we'll face, we'll find ways to keep ourselves entertained, to make the most of what we're confronted with, and carry on trying to survive, just like now.
I'm motivated to somehow be part of the solution and always have been. The only difference might be which problem is facing me now. It's not the Soviets, which seemed the biggest problem when I was a kid. It's not the 1970s energy crisis any more, with our national malaise (thank you, Jimmy Carter -- you were right). And it's not so much COVID anymore -- the only thing standing in the way of us having beaten that down already is our political choices (who'd'a thought?). So, our situation may seem more dire or widespread or high-stakes than it has been in the past, but that's just our lack of perspective and limited vision making us think that. I'm pretty sure some Civil War era folk may have thought the same thing, along with the Michican Indians when Cortez and smallpox brought them down. What civilization and colonization did to Native Americans is no greater than what we've done to the world with our fossil fuel and polluting society.
We'll be OK, like we always have, like we always will, because we're alive and kicking and we make of our lives what we know how to. Which is exactly what we've been doing this whole time so far. And, in the unlikely event that we extinct ourselves (whether it's global habitability or human fear causing the breakdown of the current order), then it's a shame and still OK, just like our own death.
