When It Comes to the Climate Crisis, Hope Needs to be Earned
If you’re hoping that we will just magically technofix our way out of the worst effects of the Climate Crisis, then you might as well get in the back seat of a Tesla on a winding country road and “hope” that the full auto-pilot feature — the one that you didn’t activate — will just miraculously switch on. Sadly, recent events in Texas illustrate the results of this experiment.
And other recent events in Texas (specifically March’s climate change-affected polar vortex shift southward that left the Lone Star state looking more like mid-winter Montana) show that hoping an extreme weather event won’t repeat after disaster strikes, instead of mitigating against the worst effects of climate change and actively preparing for the likelihood of another disruptive event, is a short-sighted recipe for disaster. You would have thought that after southeast Texas experienced five 500-year storms in as many years, that would have already been clear.
But it’s too easy to pick on Texas, when in fact most of the Global North has adopted more or less the same mindset. To be fair, many places are not as ideologically intransigent in their understanding of how long-term effects of climate change are coming home to roost as that bastion of fossil fueled independence, but then sometimes the idea that you are actually doing something when you are barely moving the needle — well, that can be more pernicious.
Because if you just tune in to the news cycle and read about how climate change and biosphere degradation are horrifically bad and have already started to have catastrophic, real-time consequences, you will likely find solace (hope!) when the same reports end on news that we can avert many of the worst effects of climate change if we just decarbonize by 50% in 2030 and get to full net-zero by 2050.
Well, “Phew!”, sounds like we are on the ball to get this climate s*%t handled! Fingers crossed, really “hoping” this works out for us, now back to normal life! Which is to say, since you’re now vaccinated, it’s time to take that elaborate vacation that you’ve been denied due to the Pandemic that disrupted the Global status quo for the last year and change — a Pandemic that “hopeful thinkers” say is basically over now, even as worldwide cases led by India and Brazil (and continued hot spots in the U.S., Turkey, France, etc.), are simultaneously setting new records. No need to reflect on how we should learn from the Pandemic in order to make a critically delayed pivot away from “business as usual.” No way, back to normal please…what are we binging tonight?
If you detect some subtle sarcasm in my tone, then you are perceptive, but let me be clear that despite my (occasionally) cynical view of humanity, I have NOT abandoned all hope. It’s just that what I have abandoned is the “hope” that is grounded in the necessity of someone else doing what needs to be done in order for you to survive or even thrive. If you are not willing to commit to a process of rapidly winding down your own, personal relationship with overconsumption and blind belief in the sadly misguided, continuous growth-fueled economic model that has led us to our current “house on fire” condition, then you should refrain from having any hope, for our condition is indeed hopeless.
Hope is earned by actively changing your behavior to be at the vanguard of a world with radically re-ordered priorities. Hope grows when we embrace climate justice by reconfiguring the one-sided, exploitive relationship between the Global North and South, as well as between the haves and have nots in the industrialized countries. Hope thrives when we accurately value the priceless ecosystem services (ironically “priceless,” since they never factored into mainstream economic theory) provided by a healthy biosphere and climate. If these concepts fill you with hope then you should indeed be hopeful, for you are part of a movement for change that would not exist without your participation.
Otherwise, Elon Musk has a Robotaxi waiting for you.
