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In my opinion 'controlling climate change' is not the goal, and in fact is an illusory proposition that harkens to the same worldview of control and domination of natural systems that brought us into such danger in the first place. No one controls complex systems. https://twitter.com/jembendell/status/1291636727946153985
If you let go of control as the goal here are some things it is not too late for:
- building intersectional movements centered on equity, health, well-being and ecology with enough power to change infrastructure and investment to prevent as much future emissions as possible
- building intersectional movements centered on equity, health, well-being and ecology with enough power to change infrastructure and investment to prevent as much future emissions as possible
(You can't control the climate but you can act in ways that will make the future better for those who come after you than it would otherwise have been.)
-It is not late for challenging worldviews of supremacy (patriarchy, white supremacy, supremacy over other species) so that we may more clearly see our place in the interdependent web of which we are part and use this clarity move forward, not in control but in partnership.
- It is not too late for preparing the infrastructure and human culture of care to cope as compassionately and equitably as possible with the climate change that has already occurred
-It is not too late for learning to live lives of care, intention, and reciprocity even through a period of rapid change that will be caused both by climate system impacts we cannot prevent and the changes to infrastructure and other systems we will intentionally choose.
Control is an unobtainable pursuit, but acting in ways that make the possibilities for other beings a tiny, tiny bit better than they otherwise would be is doable every moment of every day, if you so choose.
That's humble and humbling, sometimes confusing, always uncertain. Most likely no one, including you, will accurately identify the difference that you have made and it certainly will not feel as heroic as "controlling the climate" might.
Rather than heroic we each in this time have the amazing good fortune and responsibility to act as unique and essential parts of complex and ever changing systems, pushing as best we can in the direction of life and possibility.
Giving up control is not the same as giving up.
PS: Having been grieving the climate change we haven't prevented for more than twenty years, being ferociously angry on behalf of my children & undertaking ongoing inner work in this regard for two decades I humbly submit that my stance is not a product of a "defensive mechanism"
...though I am sure that I have many defensive mechanisms which I try to accept gently in myself
Just as I don't want to be a hero who seeks control, I also choose to be ok with pulling back, day by day for the rest of life, the layers of defensive mechanisms.
But so far, as I pull them off, I don't find beneath them any desire at all to declare the end of my influence on the future.
What I find is the acceptance that I will never know how this all ends and the determination to live each day as as if what I do matters.
I hate climate change, the systems and violence that brought us here, I hate all the harm that I can't prevent.
But friends, there is a huge universe between not being able to control climate change and not being able to do anything at all about it, and that universe is where I choose to live. There's a lot of room there for everyone.
