A prescient quote from a book I am reading which was written nineteen years ago by a powerful, sometimes controversial, business/ environmental leader who has since died.
"The tendency to ignore a gathering storm is especially apparent in the response to the threat to the global environment, climate change perhaps being the prime example. Evidence that we are permanently damaging our environment is dismissed as a non-issue, the latest scare tactic of "extreme environmentalists, " in spite of the considered view of a majority of scientists that early action is imperative to limit the controllable buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that permanently affect climate. People in government and business in both their work and personal lives routinely make decisions on matters of much less importance on the basis of evidence far less persuasive, but on this issue, which could affect our very survival, many argue that we should wait for scientific certainty. Business, in short, as usual--until business is no longer possible."
Maurice Strong Where on Earth Are We Going?
Wow--how difficult it is to read these words and know that so much water has gone under the bridge in the twenty years hence. Strong understood the forces we are up against when he said business as usual until no longer possible. It makes me ask the question once again--why do so many humans find it impossible to see beyond their own personal needs and desires to the needs and limitations of the greater whole? And yet I know that if persuaded to take action out of a place of deep caring I do believe that many people would choose to do the honourable thing and modify personal lifestyle behaviours accordingly. What then does it take to persuade the average person of the desperate urgency of climate change? And how not to become discouraged by the sheer scale and immensity of the problem?
Strong mentions in his intro that he is often asked if he is a pessimist or an optimist to which he authored this response: "Simply put, I guess I am both. I am an optimist in the sense that I believe it is feasible--indeed more so than ever before--to shape a peaceful, secure and equitable future for all humankind; pessimistic in the sense that I believe that we have not yet made the fundamental shift in priorities and behaviours that will enable us to achieve this."
I want to feel as cautiously optimistic as Strong did when he thought about the fate of the world almost twenty years ago but I am not there yet. Indeed I am fully capable of recognizing that there are countless examples of amazing people engaging in wonderful, desperately urgent work towards protection of air, waters and soils but cultural change is slow and the clock is ticking.
Nevertheless, because I love Earth and my children with an equal ferocity and tenderness both, I forge onward. I am holding fast to my hope in Naomi Klein's Leap Manifesto and the forward thinkers there are welcoming and encouraging us to embrace a new movement out of the US called the Green New Deal. Take a moment to learn a bit more about it by watching the two minute video in the hyperlink and see how you and your family and friends can help to ensure the world is a more livable one for all species in the near future and for generations to come.
Thanks for reading!
Interestingly, as a personal aside, while reading Strong's book and realizing the author's involvement in the UN I am mentally revisiting the occasion in university when one of my professors told me he thought I should pursue a career with the UN. I am imagining how different my life would have been...Pondering this, I am sitting here grateful for my quiet Island and busy family life, the swirl of which is enough for me any day.
In warmth,
Jill
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