Loss and Climate Change

This is to date the darkest, most deflating post I’ve made to date.  Loss -  so deflating, but something that needs to be dealt with.  I find this topic bleak.  Are we really all just screwed?  Certainly a lot of recent readings first expose exactly what we are faced with.  They temper that with perspective and solution on how to address these issues.  So – let’s assume that we’re screwed.  What is going to happen and what are we going to do about it? Looking at climate change, we see that climate is being framed and presented in increasingly innovative ways. 

It seems that we often ignore our eventualities, especially when they are far off into the future.  And why not – we are safe here and now, and who knows what is happening into the future.  As a result, we put off dealing with the loss because we still have yet to feel it.  Could we say that we don't even care?  I don't know about that We already see and feel the impacts that climate change is imposing on us. 

Loss is impactful, and we each deal with the emotion in different ways.  Even though we feel that someone else will feel the loss, we must still realize that it is coming.   But still, it impacts us, and we can

Maybe if we individually understood loss better, we could be in a better place to understand climate change and our feeling of loss towards it.  While something we are facing now and into the future, it must still be recognized that growing our understanding now may engage us to speak to and talk about climate change.  Increasing the conversation would have two positive outcomes.  Firstly, it opens up the dialogue and brings the issue of climate change to the surface, which may indeed raise awareness and potentially action.  We may be able to find through this ways in which we can frame and message about climate change, better positioning us to positively deal with its loss.  Secondly, it helps us better understand the losses and be prepared for them.  It may come from this dealing with the loss a new awakening and awareness of the issue.  Could this be the solution to the climate crisis?  Would dealing with the losses yet to come now be the way forward so that we don't have to face that eventuality?

The loss stems from losing what we felt was ours.  This is not a possession issue as much as a feeling of right to access.  When you give in to that loss… when you give up that feeling…  you don't need to feel anymore.  You don't need to worry.  All the pain goes away.  But what happens when you lose the ability to feel?  Does that pull something away from your humanity?  There always seems to be something that is attacking us, trying to take away from what we hold dear.  And if we manage to let go – then the pain is gone.  

Would it be better?  If we gave up?  If we gave into the feeling of loss? 

It’s a hard thing to think about.  When we move on to think about the world beyond the loss, what would it be that we talk about?  Were things to go about as we predict, we will still be talking about the heat of the sun on our skin, of the sound of the grasses and bees, of the feel of the hot wind moving around us.  We wont be talking about the governments that did or did not fail, or of what we should have done, but of what really is important to us.  We will not talk about despair, but of life, and love.  We need to be strong and as we go into the good night, the talk of the world is what will keep us here, actively engaged and fighting, and we will not go gently. 

I spend a fair bit of time going to and reading the proceedings from various conferences and summits.  What has struck me over the years is the number of outcomes that conclude with a “call to action”.  Then, at next year’s conference, there is another call to action.  And this cycle continues to repeat itself, year after year.  In the past 6 months or so, gatherings that I’ve attended have actually begun to realize just how futile all of these calls have been are and now actually coming out with action items. Commitment to the actions will be the tool governments use to help people in confronting the loss – showing that we still have something.  Something dear to hang on to and fight for.