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April 21, 2016
For many years, I have listened to the Thom Hartman show on WCPT radio in Chicago. His typical sign on/off from each show usually includes the phrase, “Despair is not an option!” And with the rise of income inequality, global terrorism, endless wars for energy resources and especially global climate change and the potential catastrophic effects of unchecked burning of fossil fuels, the world offers us much to worry about in the 21st century.
Nearly two years ago, I listened to an interview with Guy McPherson from Nature Bats Last. Thom Hartman spoke with the environmental scientist and I found myself fretting over the dire predictions being submitted by the professor emeritus from the University of Arizona.
While listening to the broadcast, I found myself pacing in and out of my kitchen, leaving the radio behind only to return and continue listening. Honestly, I did not want to listen. With every detail of the professor’s apocalyptic vision of our world undone by climate change, fear wound its way through my body. Hearing the environmental scientists message, I could only digest small bits of the conversation without feeling absolute terror at the prospect of human extinction and potential desolation of the planet in my, and my son’s, lifetime. On Professor McPherson’s website, he admits his message often induces despair in individuals receiving it. Well, I certainly lacked the immunity of indifference and dread filled me. I stood in my kitchen sensing the type of fear, perhaps experienced by my fellow Americans at the height of the nuclear arms race. Perhaps, I might witness and experience the horrors of planetary destruction at the hands of my fellow members of humanity. And the worst part was my own complicity in the destruction! For days, a sense of dread and panic so thoroughly inhabited my thoughts and feelings.
Having long known of global warming, but not having seriously studied the issue, I found myself catching up on and reading the available information on the topic. Whether reading the IPCC report or the Climate Progress site or the Desmog blog or myriad other news sources in the mainstream press, the environmental community or the scientific world, I sought understanding, trying to grasp the worlds current disposition in the global climate change crisis. Was it still possible to mitigate the damage? Was it too late?
Not knowing the details of climate change can leave one with a feeling of dejection. Not knowing the potential solutions can lead to crippling hopelessness and leave one in a state of inertia. After extensively reading the available literature and thinking about all the information, I understood the range of debate in the scientific community: it’s happening, but how bad will it be? Will we, in the immortal words of Doctor Strangelove’s character, General Buck Turgidson, “Simply get our hair mussed” or will there be worldwide devastation as suggested by professor McPherson?
Following extensive research and reading I realized humanity and the world’s creatures would experience climate change differently, depending on their planetary location. Even further, mild rises in global temperatures could bring destruction to low lying and vulnerable locations such as Miami due to sea rise. Runaway global warming would create the conditions for a massive extinction event of most if not all creatures and plant life on the planet. With the poles of the debate fixed in my mind, I searched for an antidote to the sense of depression and mourning lodged in my being. I was seeking hope, an organization and a plan to mitigate the effects of climate change already occurring and fight future, more destructive CO2 emissions.
As Tom Hartman delivers the line, “Despair is not an option,” he usually finishes with the phrase, “Tag, you’re it!” meaning, get active in our democratic-republic and participate in the process of change. Behind the imprecation to become involved is the radio hosts often stated understanding: action dispels despair! Action provides hope. Action defeats inertia and with plenty of work required to alleviate and combat climate change, being active in the movement to end the fossil fuel era can provide the hope due to mobilizing and working on the project of creating a sustainable and renewed planet.
My son stands at the precipice of his teenaged years. As his parent, I have vowed to fight the crisis. I believe the work is necessary to secure his future. He deserves to experience the good fortune and opportunities former generations provided myself. He deserves the chance to prosper and be happy as do all members of humanity, but doing so in the context of a planet sustained, it’s ecosystems renewed and the diversity of species maintained and protected. While professor McPherson’s predictions were dire, I promised not to lose myself to despair. I decided to act and act with utmost earnestness. As the great Chicago writer and journalist Studs Terkel famously pronounced, “Hope Dies Last!” I grasp hope with a type of ferocity provided by the general scientific consensus of, while we still have time, we need to act and act now and with all out alacrity!
While we all work and work through the logistics of living, such as, grocery shopping, bill paying, raising children and all its perils and pleasures, having a social life… We can still participate in a variety of ways. Giving a couple of hours here and there per week to Chicago350 provides myself a feeling of relief, but the relief involves moving the issue forward and fighting the major issue of the 21st century. Action truly repels feelings of despair and provides a sense of peace amidst the pressures of daily life.
So get involved in the environmental movement to fight climate change. Plenty of work needs to be done. Whether battling fracking, tar sands, oil pipelines or bomb trains or advocating for a clean energy economy and the resulting jobs or joining the divestment movement, the effort required proves extensive but not impossible or implacable. Find an organization near you acting on an environmental issue closest to your mind and heart. Join other folks in your community mitigating adverse environmental impacts. A mass movement has the possibility and power to create a shift in consciousness and “facts on the ground” worth the time and satisfying labor required to make it happen!
For me, the group addressing climate change and placing “facts on the ground” with vigor, strength and most importantly, a viable proposal is 350.org. 350.org is the international NGO with a plan to further delegitimize fossil fuels and the companies profiting from the burning of the same. Chicago350 is the chapter affiliate active to implement the strategy locally!
If you are an individual wishing to join Chicago350 and our divestment campaign, attend a monthly happy hour or a monthly meeting. We welcome those with the desire, purpose and resolve to fight the climate crisis. If your organization is interested in allying with Chicago350 on divestment, contact us. We are more than happy to obtain the support of organizations committed to creating not only a sustainable planet, but also a world renewed and viable for all living flora and fauna.
Join us, because, as Thom Hartman states, “Despair is not an option!”
Posted by Larry Coble
