May 5, 2020
Who We’ll Be
For two straight weeks in November of 2018, it was unhealthy to go outside in Northern California. When the dangerously high levels of fine particulate matter from California’s Camp Fire finally lifted, we peered out our doors into the outside world. We blew the ash off the leaves, dusted it off our railings. We grieved for those we had lost, and for those who had lost everything. Tried to remember what it had once been like to feel free and safe in this place.
Everything had changed. Even the same familiar places looked and felt different. Mundane things now felt precious and fleeting. The climate crisis had come to our doorsteps and we were vulnerable, grieving, exposed. But although we went through this experience physically isolated from our neighbors, it was a shared experience that forged resilience, resolve and a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world. We were transformed, more acutely aware of the world as it really is and forced to confront the climate crisis and let it change us. Then, we were ready to create something new from the ashes.
This process of becoming fully aware of the scope, magnitude, and all-encompassing implications of the climate crisis could be compared to going through a wormhole. The world looks and feels completely different before and after, and you can’t go back the way you came. It can be an immediate transformation, brought about by a traumatic first-hand experience like a natural disaster. For others it is gradual, a compounding realization that becomes clearer as new data and experiences fit together like puzzle pieces to present the irrefutable truth of the climate crisis. Like how interconnected and vulnerable we all are to it. How all of our best laid plans will come crumbling down in the face of it. How it threatens every single being and thing we know and love.
Today, the coronavirus pandemic has thrust all of us, as one global human family, into a disorienting and devastating time beyond anything most of us have ever known. Though our air may be cleaner than it’s been in decades, the earth seems to have disintegrated under our feet without being replaced by a new foundation to stand on. We wonder when it will ever feel safe again in our communities. We are grieving, vulnerable, grasping for meaning, longing for solid ground.
But while the pandemic has forced many of us into physical isolation, we go through this wormhole together, more connected as a human family than perhaps we have ever been. The grief, anxiety and uncertainty we each feel are shared across our neighborhoods, towns and cities in blue and red states alike, each of us part of an intricate web that weaves across the globe. Together, we are mourning and destabilized. Together, we recognize our vulnerabilities and shared fate. Together, we search for solid ground. And together, we have the opportunity to bring our full selves with us to lay the foundation for a healthy, thriving world.
As we begin to peer out our doors into the world that awaits, what do we take with us from this liminal space? Who will we be as a global family of refugees, searching for a stable place to call home? Long before the coronavirus made its way to its first human host, the climate crisis was already demanding to be reckoned with — and presenting an opportunity to reimagine the world as we knew it. From this time of disruption, we will bring with us new heroes, new awareness of the power we have as people, and new ways of seeing ourselves and each other to build together the world we need.
1. Our Heroes
My sister is a doctor in the same conservative town in Pennsylvania where we grew up. In terms of our politics and the respective paths we’ve taken in life, she and I are very different. If I’m honest, my passion for my work has caused me to look down on her for not caring enough about the climate crisis. But when she recently volunteered to leave her practice to treat Covid patients at a clinic with scarce access to PPE, I finally realized: although I like to think that the purpose of my work is to support the continuity of life on Earth, I know I wouldn’t have the courage to put my life at risk the way she and all frontline workers do every day. I work on climate change for a living, but I work behind a computer screen, not PPE.
People in the climate movement tend to have an eye toward the future — we work for a thriving planet for all people across generations, extending far into the horizon. But healthcare workers look people in the eye and work to save their lives in the here and now.
And herein may be a lesson for the climate movement: there are many ways to contribute to saving humanity’s future. Doctors, firefighters, pharmacists, indigenous knowledge holders, warehouse workers, farmers, food bank workers, delivery drivers, nurses, sustainability professionals, climate activists — we have a lot in common. Some motivated to nurture, nourish and save lives in this moment, others motivated to save the lives of people and life on Earth far into the future. In the face of our broader service of life on Earth, these are small differences.
Perhaps we will find that some of the most compelling and aisle-crossing climate leaders of tomorrow are the frontline heroes of today. In this moment of rebuilding the world, we need the biggest, most diverse and courageous tribe humanity can muster. The heroes of this pandemic might be just who the climate movement needs to meet the magnitude of the moment demanded by these interconnected crises — acting with the urgency needed for today and tomorrow.
2. Our Power
Rarely do we encounter a global crisis whose outcome can be influenced directly by the activity of individuals. But as the virus descended upon our communities, we saw our individual behavior merge with the collective to create tangible, global impact that, at least in the first wave, has flattened the curve. And this is a second learning for the climate movement: taking on individual responsibility for saving one another and the world isn’t laden with sacrifice, it’s teeming with power.
No, individual action alone will not stop climate change, nor are stay-at-home orders and massive unemployment long-term solutions to current and future pandemics. We will need bold governmental leadership, decision-making based on the long view, sweeping policy and institutional changes, and a reimagination of capitalism and the world order. But we can’t wait for them.
Individuals are already standing up to demand that their employers commit to climate action commensurate with the scope of the crisis, in ways that have influenced the GHG emission reductions targets of global companies. This form of employee organizing has gained steam during the pandemic, where workers are wielding their power to demand paid sick leave, adequate PPE, and other basic requirements to perform the duties of their jobs safely.
And in an effort to respond to acute individual and societal needs during this pandemic, companies are practicing a skill that will be critical to their survival in the age of climate change: business model transformation. Many companies are built on industries and products that are incompatible with a zero-carbon future. In this pandemic, some pivoted to produce ventilators, masks and hand sanitizer that met a societal need and kept their workers employed. Other heavy-emitting industries have collapsed due to lack of demand, and will need to be reimagined entirely. Companies are beginning to recognize that, in this new world order, their employees and their customers are their most influential stakeholders.
Rebuilding the world does not belong solely to governments and corporations, although they must play a leading role. Individuals will be the key drivers of change in the new world we must create together, and we are already stepping into that power now.
3. Our Humanity
Almost overnight, the pandemic has forced us to confront how vulnerable we humans are, and how fragile and fleeting human life is. This has opened up new ways of connecting with one another and has forced many of us to merge previously siloed parts of our lives. It has meant seeing one another as full people — our kids, posters, favorite books in the background of video conferences, emails now beginning with the requisite “I hope this note finds you and your family well in this challenging time.” It is this vulnerability and expression of ourselves as human beings, full of our own unique strengths, emotions, stories and inspirations that will enable each of us to bring our full selves to bear for the climate crisis. The scope and scale of the crisis demands nothing less.
We are also demonstrating a trait that has proven elusive to our species: the ability to play the long game. Despite unknowns about the virus and the effectiveness of our mitigation efforts, we made dramatic changes to our lives in hopes of a future result that was unquantifiable and uncertain. We may never know the number of lives that were saved by social distancing. But despite the uncertainty, we did it.
The long view is essential to addressing climate change. According to our recent analysis at Project Drawdown, deploying climate solutions consistent with what the science says is necessary would cost around $25 trillion globally, but would yield long-term savings of about four to five times that amount. This doesn’t even account for the huge amount that would be saved by improving public health and avoiding massive climate risks. Scaling these solutions globally will require foresight on the part of governments, corporations, cities, and individuals — investments today that will reap incalculable rewards in the future.
Neither of these ongoing crises are likely to have clear endings. There will be no ‘after’ climate change, and the effects on people and society inflicted by this pandemic will linger far into the future, even after the virus subsides. Creating the world we need will require that we all decide together, over and over again, day after day, that it is worth it to work toward a future that is healthier, happier, more vibrant, more resilient, more prepared, more equitable, and more beautiful than the one we once knew.
In 1977, a gold-plated record containing the ‘sounds of Earth’ was placed aboard the Voyager spacecraft and sent into outer space. The Golden Record attempted to capture the essence of our species and life on our planet: whales, birds, the ocean, an avalanche. A human heartbeat, a baby crying, laughter, a kiss. Soul-stirring music from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages. The Golden Record provided the rare opportunity to look back at our lives on Earth, to see ourselves from afar, to reflect on how we wanted human history to be perceived by future civilizations.
But this moment is not for looking back at who we were. It’s about looking forward to decide who we need to become to meet the magnitude and awe-inspiring opportunity of the climate emergency.
What will be the sounds on our track of the Golden Record? What will be the language, the cries, the demands, the commitments and the mantras of us? The people who — in a time of unimaginable suffering and despair — cobbled together their grief, vulnerability and uncertainty, and cast their eyes on the same North Star: a livable future for all for eons to come. The people who became who they wanted and needed to be.
