Adult Caused Climate Change

We’ve all been in a parking lot, and we’ve all been in a forest, or at least in the shade of trees.  Contrasting these two experiences is the only climate science I need.  The world is nicer under a tree, and much nicer under lots of trees.  We have paved, plowed, and mowed too much land, and that’s period.  It was a bad idea.  Let’s all get to work unpaving and planting trees.  We don’t even have to actively plant if we’re just that lazy.  Trees will do even this for us.  If we could unpave and refrain from mowing, the forest would arrive at out doorstep, free of charge. 

This plan is called leave trees.  It’s called let the Earth do her thing.  It’s also called sit back and enjoy the ride.  We busy ourselves fighting nature in our own backyard and then want to fly to Costa Rica to see a forest.  We mow everything that’s not a blade of grass and are up in arms when someone in Brazil does the same.  We deforested most of this continent, and still clear cut trees for toilet paper and junk mail, so who are we to talk?  If we’re so concerned about where the forest is going, welcome it into our lives.  I feel so bad for anyone who has not met a forest and fallen in love. A forest should not be something that any of us has to drive to.  We need forests everywhere so that rural, suburban, and urban kids can know them and love them, and seek to protect them. Being afraid of the forest is so medieval.  Many of the people with the most wealth and power have lost their connection to the forest.  Love some trees.  Get over grass.  Get over beef.  And get on with the good life.

We talk so much about “human-caused climate change.”  It’s actually “adult-caused climate change.”  We adults are the ones making the decisions.  Greta Thunberg is so right to be pissed.  And if she ever gets unpissed then she’s right there with the adults who are dumbfounded and defensive about being called out.  The kids have so much to teach us.  It is our turn to listen and open to what they know.  I’d be such a primitive version of myself without my daughters midwifing my old straight ass into this millennium. And I considered myself a pretty self-realized sensitive guy before I met them.  I’ll just say that I’m better every year that I open up and listen to the youth.  We should all try it sometime, all the time.  I feel terrible for some people who are not fortunate to have young teachers in their lives, and even worse for parents who have teachers they are not listening to.  Please make sure that this is not you.  For example, my daughters have had several friends who are one name and gender in our house, and another at home.  To not listen to and open up to your child is to not know her or him.  Because your daughter cannot tell you she is not Jim and not Dave and not Tony, not the son you thought she was, does not change the fact that she is not the son you thought she was.  And she is not the son you persist in thinking she is, no matter how hard you persist.  Who loses because of your fantasy?

This sounds like a tangent, but it is brought to you by our tired delusions about this climate crisis, and as Greta put it, our “fairy tales of eternal economic growth.”  Isn’t it an interesting twist the the adults are the ones believing the fairy tales?  The strength of our stubbornness and delusions does not make the delusions real.  I’m so happy that the strongest, clearest message about the global climate crisis is coming from the youth.  There is definitely some kind of calculus at play here- the kids have nothing but future, and adults have nothing but past.  Their eyes and minds are fresh and open while ours can be jaded and calcified in obsolete patterns and beliefs.  I remember how aghast I was at 18 when I began to wake up to how wrong our systems are.  I screamed about it and changed what I could in myself, but eventually got very used to the systems that disgusted me. We adults seem unable to afford to admit that these systems did not, and do not work.  We have seen so much of the past that we are crippled in our vision of the future. We are so heavily invested in our comfortable way of life that we refuse to change course. 

I know that I am preaching to the choir, so I need not go on.  Since we are the choir, I suggest we sing.  Let’s celebrate the youth and get behind them and next to them in any way that we can.  Let’s make sure that their voices are amplified and respected.  Let’s make sure that they do not acclimate and inure to broken systems.  Let’s get out of the way.