See
Through the Smoke
Here
on the West Coast, we will soon enter — if we
haven’t already — smoke season, when haze in the
air amplifies stress about the future. While the
climate crisis brings with it many challenges,
from rising seas to increased needs for justice
and a change to the status quo, wildfire smoke
is a singular, immediate, eye-watering reminder
that we are already in trouble. Smoke season is
a time of high anxiety for people concerned
about the future of life on this planet. If you
are reading this, that’s probably
you.
The tricky part about climate
anxiety is that it is based on justifiable
threats — not imaginary ones. As this
article in Harvard Medicine
explains, such anxiety can therefore be
difficult to treat. And it’s showing up
increasingly in the younger generations. Greta
Thunberg, whom Earth Island Journal interviewed
in 2019, exemplifies this kind of anxiety
for young people, even as she acts to counter
it. One of Thunberg’s deepest fears is that we
will reach a “tipping point, and then there’s no
going back. Then it doesn’t matter what we
do.”
How, in the face of all these
fears, can we find a way for things we
do to matter? As smoke season
approaches, perhaps we should recognize that
sometimes the fight is not external — though
there are plenty of battles to be won in this
world. Sometimes the fight is internal, a fight
against dread, against disillusionment, against
despair. If these (powerful, legitimate) fears
win the day, they prevent us from imagining a
better future, and without that imagination, the
work becomes harder. I would encourage you to
take this season as an opportunity to look
inward, to face your fears, to imagine a better
future — no matter how hard it is to do
so.
The future needs you. And it
needs you today.
Brian
Calvert
Associate Editor,
Earth Island
Journal
PS: We're going to be
experimenting with this newsletter going
forward. Our aim is to bring you more thoughts,
updates, and information about environmental
issues around the world — each week! We'd love
to hear from you on what you love, so please
send us a note at edi...@earthisland.org.
Photo by Lois
Elling |
