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There are stories in the news all the time about climate change these days. the most recent one, in case you missed it, is how sea levels will likely rise more and faster than previously thought. If you are considering buying beachfront property you might want to rethink that.
But while these stories are shocking and worrisome, for the most part people go on their merry way because they don’t live on the coast or in drought burdened California or any other “threatened” place. Not in my backyard, not my problem. Except it is. If we think the migrant issues in the Mediterranean are bad now, it is only going to get worse. But worse still is so abstract it is hard to imagine. That’s where writers like Margaret Atwood can help.
In 2009 she wrote a piece on climate change for the German newspaper Die Zeit. Now, Atwood has updated the article and the online magazine Matter has reprinted it as It’s Not Climate Change it’s Everything Change. In the article Atwood imagines three possible scenarios, a utopian one, a worst-case one, and a somewhere in between one. They are nothing more than short sketches but it is very easy for the imagination to fill in the details of what if.
And while I would love to be able to go down the road of the utopian scenario, realistically, it is too late for that one to happen. So we are looking at the possibility of worst-case or something short of that. But if anyone thinks the not worst possible outcome scenario is not that bad, you’re wrong. And if you think that daily life as we know it will be pretty much the same in twenty or thirty years, you’re wrong about that too.
The essay isn’t a huge downer though, in typical Atwood fashion, she injects some dark humor into it:
The present governor of Florida, Rick Scott, is said to have issued a memo to all government of Florida employees forbidding them to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming,” because he doesn’t believe in them (though Scott has denied this to the press). I myself would like to disbelieve in gravitational forces, because then I could fly, and also in viruses, because then I would never get colds. Makes sense: you can’t see viruses or gravity, and seeing is believing, and when you’ve got your head stuck in the sand you can’t see a thing, right?
Oh, she is so good!
What Atwood’s essay drives home most, however, is that no matter what future scenario comes to pass, everything is going to change. It will be changing in our lifetime. It will happen whether we want it to or not.
She puts it so well. I can’t believe the general apathy that abounds. I can’t believe the ignorance in Congress. I can’t believe that so many people think that their lives and especially the lives of their children wont be affected. I just can’t believe it, but I do believe in climate change.
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Joan, the apathy is distressing! It makes me want to do things like shake people and demand “What are you thinking?”
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I must lament about my garden. I don’t have nearly the space that you do, but I did try for the second year to grow green peppers. The first year they were small and bitter. This year, like you, they haven’t done much. I think it might have been too much rain early in the season. Now, we are getting almost no rain at all. Thank God for tomatoes. When everything else fails, you can at least get tomatoes. I have already pulled my first five tomatoes from the vine. Garden tomatoes taste like nothing that you get from the market. They are so sweet and maybe even a bit tart that you realize how they are classified as a fruit rather than a vegetable. As a child, I remember my Dad and I going out to the garden and eating tomatoes like apples, fresh picked, so sweet and warm from the sun.
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Lynette, sorry about your green peppers! We had lots of rain early last year and our did pretty well. Tomatoes that last few years have not done so well. They like lots of water but at a steady rate and our springs have been very wet and the tomatoes get blossom end rot. This year though, it looks like they are doing pretty well. Spring wasn’t as wet so our fingers are crossed! You are right, there is nothing like a garden grown tomato!
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It will be a new world–and we still continue on our merry way. Someone will have to have the courage to institute changes. Countries like Sweden and Denmark have been working on these problems for years because they don’t have access to oil in the way we do. They can also manage better because they are so small–trying to corral the United States, where each state is as large as many countries, has been impossible so far. Too many conflicting interests, mostly involving profit, at work.
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Jenclair, it does help to be a small country I’m sure, when it comes to getting things done. Germany isn’t so very small but they’ve been doing a lot and in the last 10 years they’ve progressed to generating something like 40% of their energy from solar. Some state are really trying but it seems always an uphill battle against the federal government and big business.
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“We are stardust, we are golden, caught in the devil’s bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” ~ Joni Mitchell
The question is…will we?
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Grad, great quote and good question! Part of me fears we won’t and part of me hopes we will.
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‘It is easy to be overwhelmed by the challenges that confront us.’
‘If we truly grasp the interconnectedness between all living things, doesn’t it follow that every change in us will be reflected in the whole?’ Mary Reynolds Thompson writes in ‘Reclaiming the Wild Soul.’
Even though often I feel overwhelmed, I believe in the power of raising my awareness and acting from that every moment of the day.
I’ve downloaded the essay and thank you for it.
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Cath, what a wonderful quote! I hope you enjoyed the essay. I think understanding the depth of our interconnectedness is a huge stumbling block. So many fail to see it. But there is hope because it is possible to change.
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Did you admire the beautiful animated gifs in that article? Alice (from Reading Rambo)’s brother is a graphic designer who designed those gifs. I find them to be extremely beautiful and spooky.
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Jenny, I did! I thought them quite haunting and well done and they contributed to the essay rather than detracted from it as things like that so often do. Kudos to Alice’s brother!
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you’re so right that we think the problem is somehow one that happens somewhere else. it would be easy given where I live and our high levels of rainfall, that there is no water scarcity issue yet it’s forecast to be a trigger point for world conflict in the future
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BookerTalk, with the severe drought in California water scarcity is quickly becoming an issue in the US. Someone even suggested building a water pipeline from Lake Superior to California and everyone in Minnesota and Wisconsin got upset because that’s our water. The pipeline is unrealistic anyway, but the conflict over water will happen a lot sooner than one might expect.
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Frightening isn’t it that 75% of our planet is water and yet a very high proportion of that isn’t fit to drink
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Great article! You are right, its unfortunate that the sense of community and shared responsibility is so lacking in mankind!
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cirtnecce, we’ve had several generations of being told it’s all about me and making money and getting ahead and taking all you can. It is going to be a hard switch to make to thinking about community and sharing.
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I’ve already seen it happening. Houses in my area have basements, and until twenty years ago, many of them were finished and always dry. Now mine has periodic flooding back up through the storm drain, and other houses that “used to never have a wet basement” are having problems. Some of the storms that have come through are fiercer than I have ever seen, producing more water in a much shorter time. There may be drought in the west, but Ohio has had two of the wettest summers ever.
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Jeanne, yes that’s been happening here too. I’m ever grateful I live at the top of a small rise and my soil is so sandy water drains fast. I fear I won;t always be so fortunate. Others haven’t been lucky and during increasingly common extreme downpours entire blocks of the city have been flooded. It’s really frightening.
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Like Joan, I can’t believe the apathy. This is the greatest threat to our planet, and we all do practically nothing. Even supposing that most humans survive this, the world will be so much less rich and beautiful. I read these articles and am depressed and frustrated for days at our inability to act.
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Helen, yes, the apathy is disheartening. I keep taking steps to transition away from my reliance on carbon fuels in my own life, talk to people about it, and hope that maybe it plants a little seed.
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Margaret Atwood is so incredible – I love that she’s not only a total fiction powerhouse, she also uses her credibility and writing power to tackle huge important issues. Thank you for sharing this article – heading over to Medium to read it now.
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Emily, isn’t she? I love her and when she does stuff like this I love her even more. Hope you enjoyed her essay!
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