Staying Positive in Today’s Climate
3 Everyday Ways to Stay Hopeful Amid Climate Chaos
A Slice of Life in Montana by Calvin Servheen
So much of the world is going up in smoke due to climate change, and sometimes it seems like our challenges are closing in around us — like we’re being slowly defeated by ourselves. Sometimes it even feels like we were born at the worst possible time in history, and that the challenges young people today have inherited are greater than at any time in human history.
And, it is true that we face an existential threat. It is true that we must rise to this challenge in unprecedented ways in order to save our planet. However, we don’t have to be defeated by our circumstances. We forget that our species is delicate and tiny in the scale of the universe, and that the nature of life is to exist against all odds in the face of entropy.
Since before our ancestors were human, life has been a struggle. It would be great if the climate crisis didn’t exist, but it does, and it becomes us to make the best of the time into which we were born. In the face of great challenges there are so many opportunities to apply our creative skills and feel fulfilled by making a difference. It is struggle that gives our lives purpose and it is strife that gives those fortunate the beautiful and rare power to help others.
Because you and I are very fortunate, we have the power to rise out of sadness and grief about climate change — not by hiding from its impacts but by facing them, accepting the damage, and using our skills to make a positive difference. To help you do this, I will share first some moments in my own life where I faced the impacts of climate change, and second, some realizations that empowered me to feel more content and to be part of the solution.
1. Design a better future
Story: Once, on a trip to Glacier Park, I read about the disappearance of glaciers. Once, the rocky mountain sides that now bake, crumbling slowly in the August heat, were permanent fields of ice thousands of years old that fed the streams and shaped the landscape. Today, there are very few glaciers left in Montana.
Insight: Glacier is beautiful today and I have painfully accepted that this change has happened. Out of my pain has come a desire to design a better future. For me, nothing is more motivating than the picture above. After this visit to the park, I began to learn about and design electric vehicles and aircraft. My skills lie in engineering, but the impulse to design solutions to climate change is universal and very fulfilling.
2. Enjoy the scars and imperfections of nature
Story: I went skiing at my local hill recently and traversed to a favorite cornice of mine. As I approached, the wind whipped over the edge and into the bowl below. I noticed that all the trees on this part of the mountain had been torched by a large fire this summer. At first, I averted my eyes from the black snags, but then I stopped. These trees were only unsightly in my mind, so I resolved to enjoy them for their bleak beauty.
Insight: Fire is a natural part of nature. Although many fires have been accelerated by human caused climate change in recent years, the forests will grow back. Modern people have an interesting idea of what constitutes beauty in nature, but it’s all in our heads. A burned down forest like this one is still healthy, just in a different phase of its life cycle. Recognizing that natural scars on the landscape aren’t always emblematic of climate change can be very reassuring.
3. Think about your mortality
Story: Once, I was backpacking in one of my favorite Wilderness Areas. After going to sleep in a wild and drenching thunderstorm, I awoke to a clear and pale dawn, and the smell of smoke. Looking uphill, I saw a wisp of smoke trailing from the mountainside. As the day went on, this lightning strike was kindled into a raging forest fire that bore down on our camp shortly after we made a hasty exit on the river. It was one of the few times that I’ve been palpably aware of my delicate mortality. Ever since then, I have been very cognizant of making the best use of my minutes alive.
Insight: Sometimes it’s helpful to take a step back and remember that you are a fleeting presence on the earth and very insignificant. When you are gone, what people will remember are the things that make a tangible impact on their lives and the environment. In a few decades, nobody will know or care much if you mentally beat yourself up about buying consumer goods, or how stressed you feel about sea level rise. I understand not everyone benefits from feeling insignificant, but it helps me spend my emotional capital on action to crowd out my draining and unproductive negative emotions.
Climate change is happening alarmingly fast, and the actions of generations past mean that our climate crisis is manifesting even faster. We cannot change the past. So, rather than wearing out our limited emotional capacity on lamenting the past, let’s devote ourselves to caring about things we can change. We can design, organize, optimize, and incite a better future. Let’s choose to feel satisfied with the good things we can accomplish rather than feeling empty in the face of our enormous challenges.
To quote theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.” I believe we will find we have the power to change quite a bit. Finding serenity is the tricky part.
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