You don’t get to go from warning about or denying climate change to saying it’s too late to do anything about it without having done everything in your power to make things better. I won’t let you get away with it. If you expect to make that transition peacefully, prepare to be disappointed. Great battles are not abandoned because they seem hopeless, that is the time to dig in and show what you are made of. Anything less than that is cowardice.
God, my mother lived through WWII and experienced all the sacrifices necessary on the home front in order that the battle might be won. They did without silk stockings so that parachutes might be made. They rationed gasoline, chocolate, had paper drives and tin drives, evened rationed staple foods. And the sacrifices made by those in the United States were NOTHING compared to those made in the Soviet Union and other countries.
And my father sacrificed four years of his life in order to do what needed to be done by joining the Army, never knowing if he would see his hometown or family again.
The only thing different between now and then is they had a government to lead them, someone to tell them what to do and give them a flag to rally around. Well, your government is not going to lead you this time, your media is not going to instruct you on how we will achieve victory. They’re not on our side for this fight. It’s time for all of us—each of us—to find a way to fight the battle of our generation, a battle that is even more important than the fight against fascism. Indeed, it IS a fight against fascism, but the fight in front of us has far more long-term consequences than what my parents faced.
What can you sacrifice in the name of what is most important to you? I suspect that given proper understanding of the consequences, my mother and others like her at home found such sacrifices a light burden. I suspect even my father understood that the cause was just and heroism was a necessary and noble aspiration. You will find ways to make a difference, I have faith in you.
My parents were never threatened by the dangers we are faced with today. The worst atrocities of the Nazis were not comparable to the possibility of an environment spiraling out of control.
Chocolate and silk stockings are all very fine, but without the meagerest of nature’s blessings, they seem like tawdry toys and temptations. We only undervalue nature’s miracles because we have been conditioned to believe that they will always be there for us. It is only when we realize we may lose them that we appreciate how integral nature’s simplest blessings have been to our fondest recollections: the sounds of waves lapping on the shore or the singing of birds. The feel of a gentle spring breeze upon our skin or the suns warming touch. Nature underlies all that we are, but we have been too distracted by the artificial world we have created. But that world has been built upon the foundation that is nature, and that foundation has been crumbling under the burden it has been forced to uphold.
What can you do to lighten the burden that modern civilization has placed upon the natural world? What sacrifices are you able to make, what acts of heroism can you take in order to inspire others? These are the questions we need to ask. Such questions might initially seem frightening, unpleasant, terrible, but they are not. Because I promise you that once you let go of things you now believe are necessary, you will begin to reconnect with nature in ways that are wondrous. You will ask yourself how you ever got so wound up in artificial distractions that led you away from all that is important and holy. You will experience real joy, perhaps for the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time in your life. And you will find something worth fighting for and living for. You will experience a sweetness to living that you had long written off as impossible. It will begin the moment you commit yourself to trying.
This must be done.
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