Read on Twitter
When I share articles like this, I feel responsible to do the following:
1) Connect it w/something closer to ppl, show how it will reach them.
2) Make room for their reaction.
3) At least gesture toward ways to respond, to act on this knowledge. https://news.osu.edu/warming-greenland-ice-sheet-passes-point-of-no-return/
1) Connect it w/something closer to ppl, show how it will reach them.
2) Make room for their reaction.
3) At least gesture toward ways to respond, to act on this knowledge. https://news.osu.edu/warming-greenland-ice-sheet-passes-point-of-no-return/
So, briefly & as I understand it: this melting will raise sea levels quite a bit, making flooding & storms more dangerous (a warmer ocean also makes storms more dangerous). It will mean more sunlight is absorbed by dark water rather than reflected away from earth by pale ice...
...which means higher temperatures on earth *overall,* with more of the kinds of damage we're already seeing: changes in local weather patterns that strain the webs of life there, from unlivably high temperatures to droughts to melting/crumbling human-built structures.
Nothing on earth is all that far away from anything else on earth. This melting may reach you through an increase in the cost of your food, a flood that washes out your road, the absence of an animal you used to see often, smog that never blows away, nights too hot to sleep thru.
When you read that the article itself, or when you look at any one of a number of recent articles or tweets, what happens in you? What's your first reaction? What's the *name* of it? What's it feel like in your chest, jaw, gut, forehead? Where do your eyes turn?
Here's how one person responded to this question, and I know that this is a really common (though by no means the only) sequence/combination. https://twitter.com/prophecymouse/status/1295373479714459649
There are a lot of ways to go from here. But the one I try to use as my guide is: what are you anxious *about* (what do you fear)? *Where* does the pain live (where within you, where outside you)? *What* do you despair of (no longer hope for)?
The answers to these questions matter for two reasons: they are the vessels and the sails for how you are feeling, & they are going to guide you on the third step, where you place your energy for a meaningful response.
You may find yourself wanting to speed through the feelings and where they're located--it may be extremely unpleasant & painful & ugly. But without this step, it's much harder to know, when you do act, what to act on, how to act, where to jump to, what to change.
My friend @spacecrone has assembled a gateway into some methods of feeling and reacting, how to weather and shift feelings and reactions, here: https://www.autostraddle.com/future-present-change-happens-when-we-are-embodied/
What are you grieving for--what's not coming back? Who do you fear for--who's in danger? What infuriates you--where are the sources of damage? What do you long for--what changed way of living feels essential, but out of reach?
Out of your answers to those questions, or others that this train of thought & feeling raises in you, choose ONE (for now) that you're going to try to learn more about, in prep for choosing a course of action. Don't worry (for now) abt connecting it to the others. It already is.
This process goes in loops. As you take in more info, there'll be times when you loop right back to yr starting reactions, & need to go thru it all again. & you'll also *see* more of the connections--how yr entry point is webbed in w/so much life & death. It's beautiful & tiring.
It's okay to rest. Even when you are resting, you are being held up, in the web, by death & life. How does knowing that feel? Where does that live in your breathing, in your movement, in your chronic pain if you have it, the stiffness of your muscles and the motion of your eyes?
