The Little Ones

Although I have no children of my own, I  heard this morning that my niece, Lillian, has just given birth to a little boy, whom she has named Charlie--a name of long lineage in my family, since it is also the name of my brother, father, grandfather, and even great-grandfather. So that makes a total of six grandbabies in my family: Rafi, age 7; David and Elsie, age 2 (or so)--all three children of my brother's eldest daughter Teresa; Lila and Amelia, the two baby daughters of Vickie (Teresa's younger sister); and now, newborn Charlie--my sister's first grandchild.

New births, new generations of one's family, are and always have been a cause for joy and celebration, and I would be a grinch indeed if I were to do anything other than share in the joy of my siblings, nieces, and grand-nieces and nephews.  But inevitably, the dark question arises: What kind of world are we leaving to them?  How long before the accelerating ravages of climate disruption trigger a cascading series of catastrophes, both natural and social,  that transforms their lovely world into a hellish landscape of chaos, violence, grief, madness, and starvation from which there is no possible escape? And is there anything we still can do to avert or even mitigate this catastrophic dark cloud over my descendants' future?

At a global scale, probably not. We had a chance, 30-40 years ago, when the reality of climate disruption due to rising CO2 levels first became widely known to the public. But due to concerted strategies of denial by the Fossil Fuel industry (spearheaded by Exxon) and parroted by Republican politicians, coupled with almost total neglect by both political parties and the pervasive, corporate-owned mass media, we have done next to nothing to curb our carbon emissions worldwide; in fact, recent figures have shown that we have pumped more carbon into the atmosphere since 1985 than we did during the entire preceding history of the industrial revolution since about 1800. This has been a catastrophic collective failure of will.

We all know why, of course. The entire Industrial Revolution, bringing with it a previously unimaginable growth in affluence, in population, and in technological innovation, arose entirely due to the sudden infusion of seemingly endless supplies of cheap fossil fuels--coal, petroleum, natural gas--that powered it.  Net energy, after all, is the foundation of any economy, and the vast amount of easily accessible and transportable net energy made available by fossil fuels drove the industrial revolution and spread it around the world, all within a mere 200 years--a geological eyeblink.

No one even imagined that there was a downside to this explosion of affluence and innovation until atmospheric sensors in Hawaii started recording rising levels of global CO2, around 1956.  (That was within my lifetime.) Subsequent years, of course, have solidly reinforced the conclusion that this rapidly rising atmospheric CO2 is entirely due to the burning of fossil fuels worldwide. Yet we are so addicted to fossil fuels--and the vast amounts of money they earn for investors--that we suppressed and denied this information until only recently, when the catastrophic effects of this rising concentration of CO2 became more and more obvious: melting polar icecaps, die-off of coral reefs worldwide, record hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, collapse of ecosystems and disappearance of species, and so forth. No thinking person (a category that excludes most Republicans, unfortunately) can any longer deny what is happening to our planet and why.

So why are people still having babies?  It's obvious--we are animals, and that is what we do.  And giving birth is the peak defining experience of femininity.  So I cannot and will not judge anyone for doing what comes naturally. But I am relieved that I never had any children of my own. It has spared me the personal dread and anxiety which will increasingly preoccupy the lives of my nieces and nephew as they raise their children and attempt to give them hope for their future. That hope will increasingly become elusive, at best, for the climate catastrophe will spare no one--not even the super-rich.

So here is my message for my grandnieces and grandnephews--a message I will never actually show them:

Dearest Rafi, Elsie, David, Lila, Amelia, and Charlie--

We love you all, but we have left you a broken, dying world. We have no excuses--we knew about what was happening 40 years ago, but we did nothing to curb our total addiction to fossil fuels. Addictions are hard to break--especially one that is the very basis of the increasing affluence that we enjoyed and took for granted all our lives, and that you still enjoy today. But not for long.

So here is what I suggest:

1. Let go of false hopes.  The future you inherit will be nothing like the present, and even less like the glorious techno-future that the mass media will continue to promote, in the teeth of growing evidence to the contrary.
2. Don't despair--your future will be hard and bitter, but this can be mitigated if you start now with the following suggestions.
3. Learn how to grow your own vegetable gardens starting now, using permaculture methods that minimize and even eliminate external inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and imported topsoil, and that adapt to changing climates through diversity. This way you will be able to feed yourself and others good, nutritious food after corporate agribusiness collapses.
4. At the same time, grow community: make lots of friends, and nurture those friendships by taking care of everyone, and abandoning no one. As your community expands, get involved in learning new skills, teaching them to others, healing each others' anxieties and illnesses, and creating innovative solutions to problems that arise.
5. Finally, grow awareness. Learn to think critically, so you can transform hostility into a teachable moment by calmly asking people two questions:a) What do you mean by ________(a word they just used--even an insult)? and b) Why should I believe what you say about it? (What is your evidence, and where did you get it?)  These questions, skillfully employed, can turn a fight into a dialogue.
6. Learn to meditate--Breathe, Observe, Let Go--whenever you find yourself afflicted by rage, anxiety, or craving.

And keep your eyes focused on a noble purpose for being alive--to cultivate the resilience, courage, and determination to create a new civilization that is symbiotic with, rather than parasitic upon, our biological support system. That new, post-industrial, Earth-friendly civilization starts from the ground up (quite literally, by building good topsoil)--not from the top down (by following demagogic leaders). Keep on trying--never give up--no matter what happens. And even if we all fail--even if our living planet goes into a runaway feedback loop that renders it uninhabitable, we will all die, but you will die in peace, comfortable with the inexorable reality of impermanence, just as you lived.

Blessings,

Uncle Tom