When You're Depleted and Defeated, Turn to Leonard Cohen and "Ring the Bells that Still Can Ring"

The climate talks (COP24) in Katowice, Poland have wrapped up with as little accomplished and as much left undone as expected ... but we always hope for better, don't we? I find myself doing a lot of finger crossing (for good luck) these days, but without holding my breath (expectations can be demons). 

The devastation of the biosphere can only get worse now, and faster and faster. We're likely in "only a miracle can save us now" territory already. 

My hubby is just back from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He and others (including Polly Higgins) spoke about getting massive environmental damage due to climate change recognized internationally as a crime against humanity. But the wheels of justice turn very slowly (unless, of course, you're an African-American accused of a misdemeanor crime in the United States), so that can only be one piece of the strategy. 

But things have been heating up (pun intended, I guess) since the publication of the IPCC's Special Report on 1.5ºC, and the Fourth National Climate Assessment in the United States. Here's how I know. Amongst articles such as The 15 Most Stylish Topcoats to Wear All Winter and Damnit, Ted Cruz's Beard Looks Tolerable, Esquire Magazine offered up 

by Charles P. Pierce. The subtitle of his article is: "The lastest U.S. government climate report is a pre-emptive coroner's report, and our politics aren't equipped to deal with it." I don't think I have to say any more.

Maclean's Magazine, in Canada, is into the fray. David Moscrop wrote:

"We can’t address an existential threat with our fellow citizens standing in our path. They rob us of the hope we need to save ourselves" is the subtitle. Now, you know what I think of hope (it's a developed world luxury that we don't deserve — unless we're taking action), but I'll let him have this one because he's a newbie who has just woken up to the climate crisis and is going from zero to "climate grief" quite rapidly. (Whoever could have imagined that one of our greatest obstacles to climate change mitigation would be people who think that hope and feeling good are more important than action?!)

Anyway, my point is this. Sometimes, this calling hurts. It's hard. We can feel defeated and depleted. And when that happens, we have to have our touchstones. The people we can reach out to, the uplifting books or movies we can read or watch, and music — songs we can listen to over and over again that speak to our souls and know exactly what to tell us.

So whether you've been doing this for decades (like my husband and me) or you're just discovering how desperately bad the climate change crisis is now, Anthem by Leonard Cohen is an excellent invitation to take stock and then to keep at it ... imperfectly, if necessary.

ANTHEM, by Leonard Cohen

The birds, they sang 
At the break of day 
Start again, I heard them say 
Don't dwell on what has passed away 
Or what is yet to be. 

Yeah, the wars 
They will be fought again 
The holy dove 
She will be caught again 
Bought and sold and bought again 
The dove is never free. 

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in. 

We asked for signs 
The signs were sent: 
The birth betrayed 
The marriage spent 
Yeah, the widowhood of every government 
Signs for all to see. 

I can't run no more 
With that lawless crowd 
While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud 
But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud 
They're gonna hear from me. 

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in.
You can add up the parts 
You won't have the sum 
You can strike up the march 
There is no drum 
Every heart, every heart 
To love, will come 
But like a refugee. 

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in 

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in 
That's how the light gets in 
That's how the light gets in 

Dragonflies, Depressions and Climate Crimes

Somehow, through sheer coincidence or rather eerie synchronicity, it's exactly one year since my last post. Last fall, I started this post and never finished it:

It seems I took an unintentional break from blogging last month. I didn't mean to. August was a blur of toothache and doctor appointments. Then suddenly September became a blur of post-retirement busyness! Conferences, courses, meetings, seminars, editing to deadline. And now suddenly it's October.

Now it's a year later, and what a year it's been. In fact, just as I started writing this, a huge dragonfly scared the wits out of me by buzzing outside the window and smushing its wings up against the glass. It's attracted to the light, I thought, but then I decided to look up the symbolism of dragonflies.

"The dragonfly, in almost every part of the world, symbolizes change and change in the perspective of self realization; and the kind of change that has its source in mental and emotional maturity and the understanding of the deeper meaning of life."
— www.dragonfly-site.com

Change, transformation, renewal, lightness and joy. Robyn Nola said, "Dragonflies are reminders that we are light and we can reflect light in powerful ways if we choose to do so." Perfect encouragement to get me writing again!

As I mentioned, this was my first year of retirement — and somehow I've been busier than when I was working. I helped my hubby and his co-author birth their book, Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival. You can order it here, through Clarity Press. (I'm boycotting Amazon until they improve how they treat their employees, but it's available there, too.) 

People in positions of power and influence all know that we're in a climate and oceans emergency, but most of them are knowingly and negligently ignoring this knowledge in order to keep lining their pockets with filthy fossil fuel money. It's disgraceful, and it's time we started calling climate change criminals exactly that.

The last thing I want to talk about this week is depression, namely my depression. It's really hard to function effectively when cursed with the knowledge and vision of what's going to happen to all the children in the world if we don't get our freaking greenhouse gas emissions in check. 

But, as Dragonfly has suggested to me today, I can look at this from a different perspective. I can encourage myself and others to see this as an exciting time to be a human being. With so much hanging in the balance, every choice and every decision we make holds weight. Are we going to condemn today's young people by ignoring our knowledge of the climate and oceans crisis? Or are we getting down to work to ensure them a future, out of sheer love in our hearts?

New York Times Declares Climate Change Emergency (Nah, I Just Made That Up)

Credit: The New York Times (funnily enough, they don't see the irony)

Climate change has stripped me of all my sentimentality. And if you've known me since I was young, then you know how much of me that is.

It's a sad loss (not, in my view, a healthy shedding). Defined as "excessive tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia," my sentimentality is what connected me to the human condition. And yes, some might have seen my empathy and compassion as excessive because it did often make me feel sad. But I'm a people person and an extrovert — so my connections to others make me feel complete and worthwhile. (Yes, introverts of the world, we extroverts have our own existential demons.)

Oh, what am I trying to express today? I think it's that I'm finding it more and more exhausting and depressing to, on the one hand, recognize that the climate change emergency fight is pretty much lost already due to global apathy, while on the other hand still wanting to punch through that fatigue and depression to deal with the likes of T**** and the denier NGOs — and now The New York Times, as well?

Yes, I'm going to weigh in, briefly, on the NYT's hiring of an opinion columnist whose views diverge, shall we say, from the laws of physics.

1. Buddy, only you would call 0.85ºC, or about 1.5ºF of warming of the Earth (it's not "earth") since 1880 (most of it quite recently) "modest."

That modest warming unleashed natural disasters that killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. And now that "modest warming" is up to 1.38ºC (March 2017), and all indicators are on the rise. This is observation, not projection. Which part of "it's happening and you can see it if you only look" don't you grasp? And then you have the gall to say something about "the possible severity of its consequences." How cavalier, inhumane and unfeeling of you. 

2. "[O]rdinary citizens also have a right to be skeptical of an overweening scientism. They know — as all environmentalists should — that history is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power."

No, sir, ordinary, scientifically illiterate citizens do NOT have the right to question the science of climate change. Citizens who read and keep up to date on the research — especially the evidence of what's already happening — have the right to pose questions. But giving people who still think we were invented 6000 years ago the power to weigh in? No. If you need proof of human wreckage, turn on the nightly news — or better yet, a weather channel.


And "overweening scientism." What the hell is that, but the sound of a writer who likes his own voice?

C'mon, New York Times, you hired a skeptic (oh, no, this fellow doesn't "deny" climate change — he's a delayer, which is just as bad) as a fumbly, feeble attempt to make T**** supporters feel welcome? While campaigning on the importance of truth? Your opinionator is being irresponsible and dangerous, and his opinions and his writings are promoting progenycide. (If you think that's hyperbole, then know this: I WANT TO BE WRONG. But I don't want time to prove me wrong because by then, it will be too late.)

Please, if you want controversy, why not declare the emergency? That'll get people talking! And give the kids and their future a break.

And so, as my husband laments, not only is there no action on declaring this an emergency, but nor is there any sorrow, any sadness, any regret, any apology about what we're losing. There's just people like the NYT's opinion writer and his cleverness, while a whole lot of other people are snoring.

The Curse — and the Blessing — of Feeling Deeply

A lovely friend left this Earth on Monday. Rather than let cancer ravage her brain, she chose assisted dying -- while she was still joyful ... radiant ... luminous. With everything unimportant stripped away, she gained a wisdom beyond her years. Visiting her in hospital was like receiving darshan from a cherished guru.

I don't know what to do with all my mixed emotions. Grief at the loss of a friend (and at the thought of her partner's deep sorrow and loneliness). Gratitude that I have special memories of time spent together. A sense of purposelessness (after all, if it's that easy to no longer exist on this physical plane, then ...). Some (dare I admit it) anger that she didn't wait longer to give miracles a chance. Blessed to have been some small part of her living, and dying, well.

And yet I wouldn't trade these deep emotions and mixed feelings for anything. They are my lifeblood. They are what make me work so hard for the children of all species. The deep sadness and raging anger at the fossil fuel greed that is making the future a thing of the past juxtaposed with the utter joy and delight that children offer us. The sense of foreboding (knowing too much about how rapidly this climate change emergency is playing out, still with no concerted global mitigation) together with a complete sense of awe and contentment when the sun shines a certain way through the trees.

When I die, I want to be as lighthearted as my friend was. And my sense now is that the only way I'll be able to make that dream come true is to keep working, on behalf of all the children of all species, to avert planetary disaster.

My deep emotions keep me connected to the global problems -- and fighting for their solution.

Throwing in the Towel on Climate Change? Not Yet, Thanks to Shane Koyczan

I have been sick for two weeks, laid low by a tenacious flu bug that's had me on a roller coaster of sore throats, coughing fits, horrifying headaches, plugged up ears (and still the autumn's rains were thunderous!), dizziness, clumsiness and fatigue ... huge, life-sucking fatigue. 

I haven't felt this sick in, well, maybe never. It sure has boosted my empathy for those with chronic illnesses, and it's given me greater admiration for my hubby, who has been battling chronic fatigue syndrome for many, many years. 

In the middle of all this, I had a breakdown. Cried and cried for hours. Realized how useless this little effort at raising climate change awareness has been ... how puny all of my efforts have been in the face of the enormity and all-pervasiveness of the climate change emergency. 

Yes, you could call it a pitiful self-pity party. But it was probably more a sudden and traumatic acceptance of how many (thousands or millions) more people we need in this fight. 

I was ready to throw in the towel. I decided that this would be my last blog post. Ever. (Okay, stop with the applause. ;-)

Then, I received this. Shane Koyczan's Shoulders. 



How can I give up now? I am part of that collective Atlas holding up the world. It's not the time for anyone to give up, it's time for more people to join in. (Which reminds me of another time I thought it was the end of this blog.)

And about that F-bomb, which some have said will keep this spoken word poem from going viral, Shane has this to say:

The fact that the world is more concerned with a single word over the fact that our planet is in crisis, just shows how completely lost we are. Every day we are subjected to images and articles of intense violence... but still we choose to object to a word that describes our feelings about the situation, rather than the actual situation itself. Our planet is dying... I can think of no more appropriate time to use this word... I can think of no better word to describe the immeasurable scope of despair and frustration I feel toward our treatment of the planet.

(Shane has discovered something I realized a couple of years ago ... that people are adamant -- they don't want to feel bad. They would rather their children die a horrible death in the future than have to feel bad today thinking about it. Alas, there is much to be done.)

"In Short, We're Screwed" ... But What's the Long Version?

Faith sees the invisible, believes in the incredible, and receives the impossible.
— Unknown

What a week! On Tuesday night, we went to a book signing where Nikki van Schyndel talked about the year and a half she spent living in the wild in the Broughton Archipelago of British Columbia. I've been reading Becoming Wild during every spare minute ever since. What an inspiration! 

Then on Wednesday, I read We're Finished. Now What? by Will Falk in the San Diego Free Press. This is someone who says, "In short, we're screwed." And he's right. He goes on:

Let the knowledge sink in. Let it weigh on your shoulders. Let it pull you to the ground for a second and rub your face in the dirt of reality. Let it kick you in the gut and double you over with plain truth. Let it boil the acid in your stomach until you’re sick with honest anxiety.

Reminds me of something I realized almost exactly a year ago (see that post here), that if we can't feel the pain that comes with realizing "we're screwed," then we'll never get to the point of taking action. And Falk has realized (personally, viscerally) that the only way past the depression that is setting in with this understanding is action. 

And then on Thursday, while discussing Falk's piece with my husband, he said something that really resonated for me. 

So many huge innovations and transformations have come about even just in our lifetime. But look at how absolutely impossible (indeed, science fictiony) they seemed only years before they were invented! 

Yet when people are asked whether we can win this admittedly humongous climate change challenge, practically everyone (who's awake ... most people around me don't even care yet) says no, this problem is too big to fix. The universal social response seems to be "No can do" ... "No want to do" ... or "Ain't gonna waste my time worryin' about it."

But damn it, my hubby says, this problem is too big NOT to fix. So he's not giving up, and I'm in for the long haul. 

I am reminded of the man who, alone in a vast desert with no hat, no water, and a broken leg, pulled himself up on one bruised and battered elbow and smiled at a bunch of dry grass, saying, "You know, if this keeps up I might get discouraged." — Larry Dean Olsen

That's the long version of "we're screwed." All it's going to take is a miracle. And we've had lots of those lately.

By the way, Falk's essay is worth a read. He ends it by asking us: 

Who among us can sit idly by while our loved ones are doomed to death – while everything is doomed to death – and not act with every ounce of our power? Action is still possible. And once you start, you’ll begin to feel better. I promise.

It's Like Living in the Twilight Zone

An activist friend and I are both feeling like we're living in the Twilight Zone, a surreal place where reality is like science fiction — but most people don't see it.

Today's reality is definitely like science fiction: a cancerous culture [my hubby hates it when I blame the whole human species when it's really just our globalized EuroAmerican economy to blame], new to the Earth, starts burning a secret, ancient fuel, making life much easier while actually (and secretly) killing off the viability of the planet.

This is all being done so surreptitiously that by the time the people wake up and smell the ocean acidification, it's too late. Rod Sterling tried to warn them, but they were too busy being enthralled to that easy life they were living.

The few of us who didn't drink the Kool-aid are spurned (well, ignored or, at the very least, looked at funny) and no one wants to hear what we have to say.

It is like living in the Twilight Zone. It is surreal. The populace carries on as if life is not threatened, as if there is no climate crisis, as if we are a major inconvenience for them. "Oh, for heaven's sake, why don't you shut up about climate change already? We don't really know for sure that it's happening and I'm trying to watch my favourite TV show."

I got quite depressed yesterday when I looked through the program of an upcoming environmental education conference that I'll be attending. Climate change was mentioned only a handful of times in over 40 pages of workshop descriptions. How I would love the educational community to open its eyes to the greatest threat we've ever faced and get serious about how to teach it in ways that will help transform the evil cancerous culture that has us in its grip.

And I sure as hell got depressed when I woke up the day after our provincial election to the same old pro-growth, pro-resource-exploitation government and the same old nasty premier (who didn't even win her own seat!).

While the chaos in my own heart and my own home matches the chaos in the atmosphere and the oceans, hardly anyone else seems to notice or seeks to understand. They don't want the climate crisis to make them "feel bad" — so environmental education conferences don't embrace the theme and governments win by ignoring the problem, and life, I guess, just carries on until it doesn't. And when things get really bad, everyone will ask "Why didn't they tell us? Why didn't they do something?"

Meantime, I realized this morning that I'm still not doing everything I can do — and that's one of the reasons I've become depressed. So here's to dreaming up wonderfully fun and imaginative ways to educate about this issue. If no one else is going to feel sad about it, why should I waste my life energy being depressed about it when I can get even more active and creative? Indeed, a young activist friend said that when she gets down or angry, she goes out to the garden. And when she's managed to clear the crabgrass away from the rhubarb, she feels — for a moment, at least — as though she's won the fight. 

Surreal, eh?

When Lack of Hope Meets Self-Doubt...

… the result is not pretty. The result is how I'm feeling these days, just a week before I head to San Francisco, by train, to be trained along with 999 other people by Al Gore and his Climate Reality Project.

If you're a regular reader, then you know what I think of hope. It's not an action verb, but a lot of people hold onto it as though doing so is actually doing something to mitigate the climate change emergency. With so many hopesters in the world still, I don't hold out much hope anymore that we're 
going to turn this juggernaut around in time.

And we're still not seeing any action on the part of governments or the big banks and fossil fuel industries. I guess they're going to squeeze every last drop of oil, lump of coal and molecule of gas out of the ground before they admit there might be a problem with their "profit over planet" mantra.

But at least I used to feel okay about the few modest things that I do. This blog, my website on transformative sustainability education for teachers, workshops for educators and community members.

Now, just as I'm about to be trained to give even more presentations to even more people, I'm losing my way: my sense of direction and my nerve. I'm thinking, "What's the point? We're hooped anyway. What can I possibly do now that will have the slightest fraction of an impact?"

In other words, depression is setting in. And it's not pretty. It's not enough to have a partner who is also a climate change activist. Our activities are so different, it's like we're living in different worlds. Most of our friends and all of our relatives either "admire" us (and take no action) or think we're nuts for all the work we do (and take no action), which creates a crazy-making loneliness and lack of connection. What if I get to San Francisco and discover that I really am crazy, and that even Al Gore and the other "goracles" don't understand how incredibly deep and acute and rapid our changes and cuts and transformations must be?

A dear friend and life coach recently helped me see that my joy in living has been eroding away. Sure, I still delight in the tiny bird outside my window, a luscious sunset, or a yummy meal that I've thrown together in the kitchen. But I used to spout the aphorism "Happiness is not a destination but a way of travel." Now, both our destination and our way of getting there make me miserable.

I want to recapture the joy and light in my life, even while carrying on the hard, desperate work of telling the world what no one wants to hear. (Can you say Cassandra?) And so, I'll sign off with my signature of old. It's who I used to be, and who I want to be again. If we're going down, I want to go down ablaze (and I don't mean literally), not all grey and downcast. Not dancing on the graves of tomorrow's children, mind you, but helping today's children celebrate the life they still have in them.

Sunshine,
Julie

Depression or Demise?

I'm currently on vacation, visiting family and friends in Hades (the hotter than hell part of Canada these days). So only a short and late post this week.

Had a lovely brunch with ecoSanity's Glenn MacIntosh a couple of days ago. Glenn is someone who deeply understands what's happening in the world, and his website/blog is an excellent source of compiled information, links and videos on the most important climate change topics. So our brunch wasn't your normal "Hey, how's life been?" sort of meal. It was a heart-rending sharing of our deepest fears about what's happening right now (heat waves, droughts, crop failures, Arctic sea ice losses) and what the ramifications are going to be – much sooner than anyone was expecting.

But perhaps the scariest thing Glenn told me is that one of his best friends, while supporting his efforts, refuses to read anything that he writes because depression runs in her family. That little story is haunting me. His friend is someone who cares and who attends rallies and protests. But she just doesn't want to learn about the depth and breadth of the climate change emergency because she's afraid she might become depressed.

The question struck me, would people really choose famine rather than depression? Death rather than depression? Extinction rather than depression? It reminds me of the comment we heard at a climate change presentation a few years ago: "Canadians (or insert your own EuroAmerican culture) would rather die comfortable than live uncomfortable." That one stunned me, too.

So there we have it. I don't want to get depressed therefore I don't care if the biosphere dies and life on this precious planet is extinguished.

Frankly, I can't think of anything more depressing.


p.s. I've suffered from clinical depression, so I know how immobilizing it can be. But potential depression is not immobilizing. And if the thought of extinguishing life on Earth doesn't motivate and mobilize us, what will?