We Are All Afraid

Perhaps the most objectively intriguing thing about the climate crisis is the variability in subjective human reactions to it. It’s a spectrum that we all fall into. No matter who you are, where you live, or what your capacity for truth is, everyone must mentally reckon with the planetary phenomena of human-caused climate change. There is no other topic so universal, generational, and individual at once as climate change. It is already making its mark on our global temperatures and weather patterns, and there is now sufficient physical and observable evidence proving that conditions on our planet have changed. Anyone paying any attention to weather (and don’t we all?) across their own lifetime knows this at the very least at a suppressed subconscious level, if not at a heightened omnipresent level. And for those who are not actively engaged in noticing the real, physical world around them, there has been enough chatter (though far too little) about climate change for long enough for those remaining humans to have formed an opinion, educated or not.

The mental spectrum of climate change could be condensed down and likened to the five stages of grief, fittingly. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Just like with grief, the journey between and among each stage is nonlinear. The realization of what scientists have been warning about for fifty years has mostly been perceptible in fits and bursts until recently, so it is reasonable to understand how one could choose to deny it, if they have not felt major climate impacts themselves, are not paying attention, and if they do not educate themselves on the subject and rather listen to misinformation. There are also those who outwardly deny for malicious self-interest. Anger should be obvious, and it goes in both directions, though only the direction of victim to perpetrator is valid. It is also reasonable to understand how one might try to avoid thinking about climate change. This falls into the bargaining stage, a spectrum within itself of both self bargaining and external (“maybe I’ll get involved after I’ve established my career”). I’d say bargaining is the stage humanity collectively is in now, as we seem stuck in a give and take, progress and retreat, do a little now and pledge much more later phase that pretty much maintains the destructive status quo.

While many of us can see and feel the comparatively minor changes in temperature over time and the more noticeable shifts to the four seasons, not all of us have yet experienced the kind of climate-fueled extreme weather disasters or glacial retreats or recurring home-wrecking floods and wildfires that’ll make a believer out of anyone. Instead, we may hear things and feel things and see things, but if we are in the bargaining phase, then just one “normal” season will have us forgetting prior extremes, at least until the next abnormality. That can be part of coping, and to stay mentally healthy, we absolutely must enjoy the good times, the old normal weather times.

Then there are the emotions. The climate crisis is not only about the physical changes to our planet and livelihoods. It is just as much about the mental load of it all. It is depressing stuff, and realistically, I’m not so sure we will ever be able to fully escape falling back into this grief stage from time to time. We will continue to see worsening damage and loss across our lifetimes. We know this for sure. Even if the entire human population manages to come together and do what needs to be done to stop the cause of this problem and to adapt to the changes that are here and still coming, the atmospheric pollution that has already been released is locked in for decades, if not generations, depending on our propensity to safely suck it back down.

It would be mentally difficult to not feel into the depths of sadness, anger, and despair that human-caused climate change brings. And that would be normal. There is a burgeoning need to develop the mental economy appropriate for this new world that we’ve shaped in our worst image, and we will need to hold enormous grace and compassion for ourselves as we allow ourselves to process these climate-fueled emotions. On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, I must say that the dream of our world coming together, stopping everything else, and fixing this existential crisis would be the most joyous, renewing feeling imaginable. Perhaps that is the antidote to our sadness. It is surely the antidote to our fear and demise.

To avert any level of demise, acceptance is where all of us need to be. As mentioned, we’ll swing back and forth and all over the place in our feelings and energy and capacity to deal with climate change, sometimes from one moment to the next. But our baseline must be acceptance. Acceptance means we’re done with the distractions and the denials.

Anger can be useful if managed as fuel in the right direction and not as a detour or worse, but it must aid the acceptance. Acceptance means accepting what humankind has done, how we got here, and how we must change. We accept the path forward, which is largely to stop burning fossil fuels and to transition to exclusively clean energy, and we do what it takes to get us over that finish line as quickly as possible. That’s the oversimplified version, but that’s all we need for baseline acceptance. From there, we go full steam ahead deploying all the solutions we already have and innovating the rest to transition our entire global economy to clean up its act and reverse its path of destruction. There is much to do, but we know exactly how to do nearly all of it.

So what is it that deep down, truly holds our species back from accepting the reality of human-caused climate change? The answer is simple. It’s fear. We are all afraid. We share a species-wide fear of facing the consequences of what our kind has done. If we face it, it means it’s real. And we fear change. Change is in the name, after all.

We fear the changes we must make to redirect our civilization. There is fear of what will be lost. Fear of the unknowns. Fear of being left behind. Fear of not being enough to help. Fear of not belonging in the new future. Fear to let go of that which we know. Fear of looking within and seeing who we really are. Fear of being sad. Fear of starting over. Fear of being uncomfortable or less comfortable. Fear of fear itself. This list could go on forever in specifics, and we all have our own portfolio of fears. Most are misguided and easily eradicated with truth (truths: you can face this, you are enough, you do belong, we need you). It’s toxic to carry these fears around. It depletes our energy when we keep feeding them. And leaving our fears to fester does no good for anyone or anything on this planet.

Psychologists widely accept that to overcome fear, we must face it. Don’t avoid it. Twice Nobel Prize winning physicist Marie Curie once said “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Perfectly applicable to our current climate crisis. Yes, fear less. Sign everyone up for that. And thanks to brilliant minds past and present, we already have a thorough understanding laid out for us as to how we got here and how we move forward in fixing it. All we have to do is listen to these experts and read their work. These are humans just like us who faced their climate fears and invested their skills and time in the study of climate science, physics, and engineering, etc, in order to build a fear-crushing toolbox of facts and solutions that our world can use to get us through this mess to the other side. We are halfway there, and none of us are alone in our climate fear.

I am not immune. I am afraid of the catastrophic future that lies ahead should we not meet this moment. I am afraid of what it means for humankind if we continue to allow the worst of us to dictate our imprint in time. I am angry and sad about the suffering of all living things, caused consciously by members of the human species. I am angry at the evil that has infected our culture and captured the minds of so many lost souls. I am angry at the ones who knowingly caused this crisis (and other crises), who continue to perpetuate their ills, and who harm and silence the truthsayers and doers who get in their way.

But I use all of this as fuel. I will not lay down silently and watch this thing go up in flames. I will not let the evildoers win.

I don’t think like them. I see more and I feel more. I envision an amazing future of health, abundance, and happiness that is possible if we make it so. I see us all choosing an enlightened intelligence that allows us to live in harmony with the natural world and with each other. I see us innovating and creating with love and joy. I see us all doing exactly what makes us happy. I see us taking care of each other, ensuring health and prosperity for our communities as much as we can. There is no need for harm or suffering or comparison or judgement or control. There is only harmonious alignment with ourselves, with our purpose, and with our world. That future is ours if we choose love over fear.

It’s not easy. Despite us knowing what we know, knowing how to move forward, knowing the only way forward is through, there are still unknowns. We don’t fully know how our climate system will respond to the breaching of tipping points, the acceleration of negative feedback loops, and the crossing of planetary boundaries. This is scientific-speak for our Earth’s stress points, red flags, and distress signals. And they are flashing red now. The unknowns will continue to pile up the longer we wait and avoid facing our collective and personal fears. Staying stuck in any stage other than acceptance only prevents us from doing the ONE THING we must do above any other thing. The one thing we were all put here to do at this moment in human history. We are meant to conquer our fears, together, and pull off the greatest achievement known to humankind: the reversal of human-caused climate change, and alongside it, the replacement of our culture of fear with a culture of love. All we have to do is accept it.