BRATTLEBORO — Perhaps the most difficult thing for human beings today - one that, however necessary, is impossible at the same time - is coming to grips with the possibility of imminent social collapse because of our unraveling climate.
Understandably, most of us are paralyzed by the the unthinkable. How will we survive? How will our children and grandchildren live in such a world? How can we deal with the suffering that such an event will inevitably entail?
Two representative news reports this past December underscored just how critical our situation is becoming.
The rapid warming of the Arctic, for example, appears to be entering an out-of-control feedback loop, the kind of tipping point long dreaded by scientists. The melting permafrost will release billions of tons of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 21 times that of carbon dioxide - resulting in still-greater warming, melting, and releasing of methane in a continuous deadly cycle.
This news was followed days later by the collapse without meaningful progress of the annual United Nations climate conference, which is dedicated to getting the governments of the world to significantly curb their carbon emissions.
As in the past, the failure to take meaningful action was blocked by a handful of industrial nations led by the U.S., which paid no heed to the warning of U.N. Secretary General António Guterres at the opening of the conference: “The point of no return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and hurtling toward us.”
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Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, my purpose here is not to bury you further in doom and gloom. I cite these two examples only to support my belief that collapse is a growing likelihood because the climate is moving beyond human remediation, citizens and their governments are not stepping up and taking the substantial actions we must take immediately if we are to avoid catastrophe, and time is truly running out on us.
My working assumption is that, if you have been paying attention and connecting the dots, you do not need another depressing climate dissertation about its alarming speed and severity, and you might be willing to begin considering how we live with such a disaster.
We're entering unknown territory, a radically new normal, with no map or GPS to guide us. Whatever our world becomes, it is increasingly evident that our civilization has entered its endgame.
It is not just the climate, either, as catastrophic and definitive as that is: it is our way of life, the way we inhabit this planet, and the way we are in relationship with one another, and not just today, but for a long, long time.
As a consequence, we are increasingly living in what James Kunstler once termed “the long emergency.”
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To live in this world, we will have to be imaginative and creative, light on our feet, shedding unnecessary and irrelevant baggage along the way, venturing outside of our comfort zone, open to new possibilities.
Most importantly, we're going to have to figure out our relationships with one another so that we begin living with our fellow beings, human and non-human, peacefully, with kindness and compassion.
We need to accept the fact that we're on our own. At best, we might be able to convince our governments to act before it's too late, with the comprehensiveness and urgency (forget conscience) required, to mitigate the worst consequences of what's coming.
Based on their performance thus far, however, I wouldn't count on it.
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That is why we, as individuals and communities, must take seriously the necessity for what is called “deep adaptation,” an approach that, in recognizing our pending collapse, seeks to moderate its impact through accommodation and adjustment.
We accept that we can no longer change our situation sufficiently to avoid collapse, but must learn, instead, to live with the change that is inexorably occurring if we are to survive at all.
The most important step in this process is to come together with one another, to break the silence about the “unmentionable,” and begin talking with family, friends, and neighbors about what is happening, to acknowledge and grieve what we are losing, being transparent about the powerlessness, sadness, fear, depression, rage, guilt, and other responses we have been stuffing away so we can get through another day of business as usual.
This is not easy, and this is why so many of us avoid doing so. But ironically, it is just such vulnerability that we've been defending ourselves against that potentially elicits the very support and affirmation we now most require from one another.
In this way, we will likely be less overwhelmed by, and better prepared to respond to, the collapse as it unfolds. Grounded in this kind of honesty, solidarity can emerge around the understanding that we're all in this together, further encouraging us to be the people of heart we inherently are.
It is from such honesty and transparency that possibilities can arise that were invisible earlier, when we were still operating as individuals. Being there for one another, cooperating and collaborating, we begin to come into harmony with our inherent interconnection and interdependence with all living beings that our hyper-individualized way of life has long alienated us from. Becoming committed to one another's well-being is balm for the toxicity of our narcissistic civilization (of the centrality of “I”) that is killing us.
Within this nurturing context, unscripted expressions of “how can I help” increasingly surface in our behavioral repertoire. Being of service to others is not only critical in a collapsing world where there will be so much to do; we discover that it is also invaluable to us for the inherent sense of rightness it imparts to us. Being helpful for its own sake, when everything around us is falling apart, provides us with the necessary meaning in life that we require to carry on.
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As this suggests, the foundation for all of this is a values-based outlook and approach.
Founded upon the heart morality that most of us are born with, we don't need to reinvent ourselves. This potential, though blighted and compromised from infrequent use, is nevertheless present anytime we care to act on it, as evidenced by the times we have done precisely that when faced with life-threatening emergencies.
Our problem is that we don't express these values with the moment-to-moment, everyday consistency required to not only survive the impending collapse, but more importantly, to survive to a world worth surviving in.
At the core, the climate emergency is a spiritual crisis, one that has been brought about by our failure to act with moral courage, to refrain from harming others, and to doing the right thing as a way of life. As such, it is not a prescription for avoiding collapse.
But it is a suggestion as to how we might live today, right now, from one moment to the next.
Together with coming home to Mother to heal our original split from which our present crisis has arisen, embracing our heart values is the way life becomes worth living in this moment of pending collapse.