That Climate Crisis Moment

It can be mind-blowing. Many of us have had this experience. It can hit you as one big one or multiple over a period of time. And when you’ve had one, life as you know it will never be the same. No, we’re not talking about the good mind-blowing experience of the Big O (though we hope you’re in the multiple category on that one).

We’re talking about the alarming mind-blowing experience when you realize that climate change is real, it’s happening now, and how the hell is this not the biggest deal? This is what we call your Climate Crisis Moment. It is a pivotal moment for any human being alive right now because every time a person has a Climate Crisis Moment, a modern day environmentalist is born. And that means we’re one step closer to securing a climate-friendly future.

It usually goes something like this: la-di-da, going about my life, reading things, doing things, but hmm, what’s this feeling brewing, ok now hold up brain, is that right, could it possibly be, am I the only one thinking this, I mean yes it’s undeniable that…

🤯 “Oh F*CK, we are in a planetary crisis! How is this not the ONE THING that all of humanity is working to fix right now and forever?!”

This you? If so, congrats. Yes, congrats because you’ve made it over to the right side of history, to the enlightened cohort of humanity. Welcome to your new worldview. At times, it can be upsetting, maddening, anxiety-inducing (aka #ecoanxiety). But once you come to terms with the science and the facts of the matter, you have a choice to either remain stuck in doom-and-gloomsville OR buckle up and prepare for the most exciting ride of your life. Gen E is firmly grounded in the latter, and we’re guessing you are too. Those of us living in the post-Climate Crisis Moment are about to accelerate the living shit out of humanity’s abilities to deploy climate solutions and to steer this anthropogenically polluting superyacht into the land of Earth-first living. 

Now, to ensure you’re in fact in good company, let’s acknowledge an OG of the Climate Crisis Moment, climate scientist James Hansen. James had his Climate Crisis Moment over three decades ago. And being the climate hero that he is, what he chose to do with it is now cemented in history as what should have been our government’s very own Climate Crisis Moment. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. In 1988, Hansen infamously stood before Congress to sound the alarm bells about global warming. Since then, there’s been but a slow trickle of these “wake up, we are f’ing up the planet” moments – until now. One by one humans are seeing and experiencing the climate reality that is happening all around us – whether it’s realizing that winters don’t seem so wintery anymore or that the tsunami of devastating extreme weather events have now become synonymous with summer. Fortunately and increasingly, people can no longer ignore the fact that climate change is here and now wait a second, shouldn’t we all be doing something about it?! 

Resoundingly, yes. We can all do something about it. In fact, it’s our responsibility to do something about it. You know that old saying “if you want something done right, do it yourself”? (Napoleon supposedly said it, and we took the liberty of swapping out ‘done well’ for ‘done right’ because, well if you want something done right…). It applies.

Everything must start with self. It’s been proven time and time again that “we” can’t rely on “others” to have the collective best interests at heart, let alone the best interests of our shared planet. But what are the best intentions anyway? This is a philosophical musing in and of itself. And let’s face it, as human beings, we often act in our own best interests, which are as varied as our personalities. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, because if the acting person has “good” morals and values, then acting selfishly can advance positive change and progress (see Bill Gates). Taking this to an industry perspective, our society has fallen into an unconscious trance of blindly trusting the intentions of the companies making the products we use everyday. Case in point: the beauty industry. Brands within this sector grandstand on delivering self-empowerment to women, all the while they are actually in the business of fueling both the climate and plastics crises, not to mention stoking the flames of rampant consumerism. Self-empowerment at what cost? 

All this to say that we must leverage these individual Climate Crisis Moments. They are lightning bolts of opportunity. Signs from the universe telling us that it is our time to act. To drive this point home, we are going to make the huge and likely improbable assumption that our crew of climate-enlightened minds share good and pure values. And so it is up to each and every one of us to question everything and to react and proact accordingly. Humanity is made up of individuals, and when each individual who has experienced their Climate Crisis Moment decides to start doing things differently…well watch out world. The next mind-blowing moment will be how fast we can change everything to suit our best interests. Which also happens to be in the best interest of our one and only, Planet Earth. Now go forth and make some noise. 

Looking for what to do or where to go next after experiencing your Climate Crisis Moment? Start simple: commit to reading about climate and environmental topics. We do a weekly newsletter that rounds up everything climate, and we think it’s pretty great (and may even make you lol…yeah you read that right). The New York Times and Bloomberg both have excellent climate coverage, so be sure to regularly read those sections or sign up for their climate newsletters. We also religiously read Robinson Meyer’s climate newsletter from The Atlantic. So there you go – your mission is to just start. Read, learn, and talk about these topics and stories. Then see where that takes you.