I am 48 years old. I am in good health. I wonder if my
life will be cut short by climate catastrophe and its consequences. In recent
years, I have written angrily about what is occurring in the Earth system as
the result of the highly elevated levels of carbon and other toxins that humans
have introduced into the atmosphere, the ground and the waters. As we lurch
into 2016, I think that such a tone is no longer necessary. My anger has grown
out of a feeling of indignation that a species would pursue such a blatantly
horrific and destructive course for itself and its fellow Earth creatures. I
thought that by expressing this - often incandescent - rage I could provoke
ripples on down the line of causality that might alter the course of the
plodding, stupid beast that is global industrial consumer society.
A feeling of rage toward the operatic stupidity of civilized
human behavior is very natural; indeed, I consider it a sign of the life force
radiating within one. However, directing a prolonged scream toward The Madness
in an effort to draw attention to The Madness is no longer needed. The ravages
of climate change and the strange, at times almost whimsical movements of the
weather and the rubble and the refugees left in its wake are now a constant
presence. Bizarre swings in the weather act now like a high, circling bird who
swoops down at odd times to crash through the windows of our dwellings before
exiting once again toward the heavens and the renewal of its high hunter’s arc.
I don’t believe I have the mental or the emotional profile to
engage in acts of sabotage that might make a dent in the death machine and its
gloomy, dumb march. I can and do participate in local movements against
extraction industries and on the myriad other issues of social and animal
and environmental justice that our present lifeways force. I am focused on a
massive personal shift in consciousness and living that is based on the
principle of entering into relationships with other people, other biota and
other places as fellow subjects to be listened to and not objects to be
exploited.
But the question returns: How to express the bewilderment, the
frustration, the rage and the despair that all arise within one upon witnessing
the galloping ruin and the obtuse and wretched mentality that is driving it?
Not expressing our feelings in the face of such loss causes soul sickness. I
believe we will only know how to voice these feelings by voicing them.
Expressing the truth is like pulling back the curtains to reveal the sun
shining outside: the contours of perception and the world are changed as we
speak and relate. We learn how to speak by speaking. As for myself, I feel I
can now voice my range of emotions on this topic without focusing on angry
yelling and gesticulating toward the destruction. The destruction has become
very evident and becomes more so with each passing day. A sense of the elegiac
is important now and it may even help to drive changes on the level of Deep
Culture (to use Gary Gripp’s term) that are the only thing that may slow the
burning of the world.
