More and more, we hear stories about climate change. It wasn’t that many years ago that only a few people were aware of the significance of the issue, or that its legitimacy was hotly contested. Recent years have seen a cultural shift, and the existence of a climate emergency is now a normal part of the national dialogue. And the news keeps getting worse, as changes happen faster and are more profound than predicted.
A recent poll from the American Psychiatric Association found that two thirds of Americans are somewhat or extremely anxious about climate change. So as the challenges of the climate crisis stare us in the face, one of the main challenges is how we continue to work on solutions without feeling overwhelmed. As the great sage and rapper Eminem offers: “The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.”
Easy for him to say. Our core beliefs are being threatened. Not the superficial, non-essential beliefs, but foundational ones we take for granted. These include: the world will go on as it always has; civilization will not fall into disorder; we humans can solve all problems; human beings are the ultimate expression of life and we are destined to reign on Earth unendingly, or at least colonize space if things get too hard here; my children’s children will have a good life and a better one than I have; our way of life will never be severely threatened or diminished; and, simply, progress.
The threat to our core beliefs is almost as disruptive as actual climate changes, as it creates a deep amorphous sense of dis-ease. Its powerful effect can be like a low-grade background depression, and can cause to us disengage from life-affirming actions.
Of course, we don’t know the eventual outcomes of the climate crisis, and hopefully our core beliefs will hold the day. But in the meantime, I hear feelings of despair and hopelessness all around. If despair does knock on our door, can we acknowledge those feelings and simultaneously engage positively with life? Feelings of despair are a natural response to major existential changes in which we feel powerless over the forces causing those changes. Nor are despair and life affirmation mutually exclusive states; they can co-exist. Let’s not be afraid of despair, since fear can shut down a whole bandwidth of emotional energy, leading to further disengagement.
Yes, despair, left to its own devices, can form into kind of black hole, sucking life energy into it. That’s not good! If you are noticing the edge of despair about the climate crisis, consider acknowledging it with compassion and then redirecting your attention to life-affirming activities, like actions to work on climate change, or to compassion for the suffering in the world. In an almost alchemical fashion, channeling compassion toward others suffering from climate change can transmute your own despair into life force.
Glacier Kwong, a Hong Kong democracy activist, says, “We don’t persist because we see hope. We only see hope when we persist.” Hope is not some end product one achieves; hope is something you do. One acts in a hopeful spirit, no matter the outcome. “I hope to live until I’m 95” is very different from “I will make healthy choices today and live today with a hopeful spirit of continued good health.” Hope that focuses on a future outcome will tend to leave us feeling more powerless, as the life in front of us is where we have the power to make a difference. The present moment is where hope for future outcomes can be born.
We can compare the climate crisis to a medical prognosis. The hope for a future life may be slim, or none. Yet folks with a prognosis, for the most part, do not give up on the life they have and start chugging the Jack Daniels. Once they pass through the stage of initial despair, they tend to embrace life, living as healthy as they are able. In a San Francisco Chronicle article, Nancy Otto, the wife of filmmaker Barbara Chasnoff, spoke about Barbara’s last film chronicling her journey with cancer, “Prognosis: Notes on Living.” She said: “When you get a serious diagnosis, you think your time is short and that’s it. But every day, every minute, you’re living, and you’re doing that until your final breath, and you have to figure out how to have quality of life in all of that. For us that meant finding a lot of joy—finding things that made us happy by going in nature.”
The ecosystems on Earth have a very serious diagnosis, and we can still affect the outcomes. For many of us, the situation is hard to bear, causing a deconstruction of our world view or personal narrative. A normal stage in that deconstruction can be the feeling of being lost in the wilderness, the dark night of the soul. That may be part of our journey of transformation. Here, try not to hold hope or no-hope as endpoints, or despair as a point of no return. Rather, trust that possibilities you could not have imagined before may arise once you are free from your old constructs, possibilities of living an engaged life during a time of climate crisis.
“Radical hope” is an emerging concept. Hope when all seems lost, hope that transcends limitations and imagined outcomes, that is life-affirming and opens to creative engagement and possibility. Hope when everything seems stacked against you. Hope not bound by your concepts and beliefs. Hope that aligns with the creative mystery of life’s unfoldment.
Hope is a verb. Live in the spirit of it, here and now.
If you are looking for ways to engage, consider going to westmarinclimateaction.org. There are numerous other organizations that would like your involvement. I am offering a sharing circle for climate distress called “Climate Cafe: A Compassionate Sharing Circle,” through West Marin Climate Action. Visit the website if you’re interested.
Greg Smith is a former psychotherapist who lives in San Geronimo.