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MY 18 YEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
I was eleven years old when I first heard about climate change, back in 2001. My mother was the bearer of the terrible news. She walked into my bedroom with an expression on her face that I’d never seen before; she looked even more serious than she had a year or so prior, when she’d sat me down for our menstrual cycle chat. I didn’t quite grasp her explanation or comprehend what climate change entailed, but I could tell from her tone that something was horribly wrong.
I’m going to tell you my personal climate change loss- of-innocence story and my despairing, contradictory, and evolving feelings on the matter. But it’s not really about me; climate change is an illness we all have in common. It’s too painful, though, for most of us to delve into on a regular basis, so the knowledge of it sits heavily within us. In my view, keeping such heaviness inside, rather than processing it with those in our communities, is deeply unhealthy. I’m sharing my feelings in hopes that what I say will encourage whoever reads this to do the same, whether in conversations, essays, art, or poetry.
“My documentary- induced despair lasted a good 24 hours and then I pushed it away; it was easier to complain about homework than to dwell on such devastation.”
2001, the year my mom told me about climate change, was a trying time in America, and it occurred when I was just starting to gain awareness of a world beyond myself. After 9/11, there was a sudden proliferation of American flags on lawns and car bumpers. I remember asking my dad what the point of them was--why an American flag instead of an Earth flag? Why just “God Bless America” if God could bless the whole world? I wrote in my diary that George Bush and Osama bin Laden were my two worst enemies, and I had nightmares about planes crashing into my home in my quiet neighborhood in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, I was always looking for signs of climate change-- or global warming as it was referred to back then. I wondered if global warming was the cause of the gray, broken trees in my yard, or the dead squirrel in the road, or the white film on the pond. What, exactly, had troubled my mom enough to sit me down that day? What did this looming monster really look like?
But my mom didn’t bring up climate change much after our talk; perhaps she felt it was her duty to simply inform me about it. I had the privilege of growing up in a relatively clean and safe town, where pollution and environmental issues didn’t have to be at the forefront of my consciousness. As time passed, I began to forget the urgency in my mom’s voice, and what I learned in school was very optimistic: essentially, if you remember to recycle and turn off the lights, the planet will be fine once again. So it wasn’t until 2006, when Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out, that I got my first lesson on what could befall our planet. My documentary-induced despair lasted a good 24 hours and then I pushed it away; it was easier to complain about homework than to dwell on such devastation.
From 2006 until now, I’ve periodically watched climate change documentaries (most hauntingly,The11thHour)andread doomsday articles. These bursts of information rip me out of my tiny work-friend-family world and into the reality of what we’re facing, leaving me utterly hopeless, with the word “why” searing my psyche: Why bother writing if no one will be around to read it in years to come? Why recycle or compost if we’re already past the breaking point, anyway? Why spend countless hours trying to figure out which Masters programs to apply to when the world is ending? Why aren’t all the CEOs of oil companies imprisoned?
After making the mistake of reading the article The Uninhabitable Earth a couple years ago before bed, I stayed up the entire night, pulsating with fear, desolation, frustration, and rage: fear of the increasing natural disasters and climate change-triggered diseases that will befall us (don’t forget that for every degree increase in temperature, the Malaria parasite reproduces ten times faster!); fear of increasingly carbon dioxide-saturated air (the amount of carbon dioxide projected to be in the air by 2100 will decrease human cognitive functioning by 21 percent); desolation at the thought of millions, then billions of innocent climate change refugees and casualties; frustration that composting and biking can only go so far; rage at the 100 fossil-fuel producing companies currently responsible for 71 percent of global emissions and the power- hungry politicians so easily bought by oil-enthused overlords.
It was that night when I reached the painful conclusion that I wouldn’t have kids. I’d always longingly envisioned the day I’d have a child of my own; I knew, though, as I lay in bed with the article’s devastating predictions playing on repeat in my mind, that I wasn’t prepared to create a life that would likely be cut short. How could I bring a human into the world, knowing full well she’d suffer shortages of clean air, food, and comfortable places to live?
My disappointment was vast and all-consuming. For weeks after that sleepless night, my chest tightened whenever parents with babies and toddlers passed me on the street. I pitied the children for their bleak futures and looked down on their parents for making the reckless decision to reproduce, while also envying them for embracing life, despite its risks. Would I never have a sleeping baby to hold or a preschooler with whom to play dolls and discuss dinosaurs? Why should I have to deprive myself of such a beautiful aspect of life when all these parents got to enjoy it? Was I not as deserving as them?
Although these thoughts still come to me when I see children, I’m trying to push the negativity away--making a definitive decision not to have kids was excruciatingly painful for me, so I’ve gone back to leaving the possibility open. Whether this means adopting or having biological kids is to be decided; I know that adopting would better fit my state of mind, but an illogical side of me craves a biological child. Now that I’ve decided not to fully close the door on having a biological child, I’m mentally in a healthier place, even if I’m somewhat deluding myself. (Deep down, I know it’s unlikely that I’ll actually go through with having a baby.) I no longer judge people who have kids in 2019 because I understand the pain in rejecting this natural urge. Besides, a friend of mine pointed out that one of the babies born tomorrow could be the climate change-reversing genius we’re all praying for.
If I were to have a child, I’m sure she’d know about climate change well before age 11, the age I was when my mother sat me down for our talk. Climate change would surround her, in scorching summers and extreme weather events. Maybe she’d experience health conditions attributable to climate change, such as asthma, mosquito-borne diseases, or mental health disorders. Now that schools are finally starting to add climate change to their curricula, she’d be aware of the impact climate change poses on weather and health. My mother consciously decided when I was ready to know about our planet’s perils, but I wouldn’t be able to do the same for my child. From a young age, she would recognize that she was born into an unsafe world. The idea of having a child that I can’t fully protect is deeply disturbing; however, simply deciding to not have a child feels like giving up on the idea that there’s any hope at all for our planet.
As you can see, my thoughts on climate change and its implications are confused and scattered. As a result, my actions fluctuate constantly and contradict one another. I use as little water as I can to wash dishes, but I take long, hot showers. I try to avoid lids and straws, but I frequently order takeout food, even though it uses wasteful packaging. I’m not trying to make excuses for myself, but in a consumerist, endlessly producing society in which virtually everything relies on fossil fuels, it’s exceedingly difficult to have a small carbon footprint. People like me, who want to minimize their footprints by composting, recycling, avoiding driving, etc. might (or might not) help the environment in some way, but such habits don’t get at the root of the issue. In fact, I wonder if devoting time to such habits actually distracts us from the root of the issue. After all, as I see it, fossil fuel-backed politicians prefer a populace that’s focused on personal carbon footprint minimization to a populace that demands sustainable infrastructure. Sometimes I find it hard to motivate myself to “go green” when I know that whatever I do will make such a negligible impact on the grand scheme of things. Other times I feel inspired to live as sustainably as I can so as to align my life with my personal values. One thing I know for sure is that I could be more politically involved.
I’m glad there’s finally more coverage of climate change in the media and that it’s become a prominent talking point for liberal politicians (who would have imagined, five years ago, that CNN would devote seven hours to a town hall on climate change?). However, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless when faced with this endless stream of dire news. Gut- wrenching facts and figures on climate change abound, but support on how to mentally process such information is scarce. Some days, I’m paralyzed with negative thoughts about the future. Other days, I purposely avoid consuming the news, let myself fall into temporary blissful oblivion, and make plans for my future without factoring in the exponential increases in natural disasters. Ever since I was eleven, I’ve gone back and forth between trying to understand reality and trying to shield myself from it. If I spend too much time thinking about climate change, I’ll be constantly racked by anxiety and dread, but if I never consider it, I’ll be ignorant and unprepared. And so, in an awkward dance, I continuously dart towards and away from the heartbreaking truth.