Resilience Amid Disruption

Call to Action (if this is too long for you to read): Do one small thing to build resilience. And please share a good recipe for chocolate chip cookies that doesn't require eggs.

Do you ever feel your words drowning before they pass through your lips? Like the rain beginning to fall just before sunrise. There's something there that needs to shine out, but it gets lost in shadows. That is where my voice has been these past several months, lost in the shadows.

The world has zapped my energy. Floods, fires, drought, heat wave. Along with other climate scientists, I have spent the last 25 years shouting 'the sky is falling' over and over. Now that it is falling, many choose to be blind - afraid that recognizing it for what it is will ruin the world we've worked so hard to build. Sorry. The ruin is happening now because not enough people (especially people with power and money) have paid attention.

Tied so deeply with the collapse of the ecosystems that support us is the collapse of our efforts to promote equity, inclusion, diversity - the efforts to promote the voices of people who are most vulnerable to this ecosystem collapse, and who hold solutions that have long been silenced. It took me a long time to come to the understanding that my work in science was deeply connected to work in supporting marginalized populations, and to work supporting inclusion: People of Color, Women, the LGBTQIA+ community. And that all of this work, was in support of continuing our democracy. Every aspect of our lives is shaped by a complex enviro-socio-political ecosystem built from our long history. But people want simple answers to complex problems.

So, for now, our future as a civilization hangs on the edge of a knife wielded by a psychopath and his team of henchmen with all the power and money in the world.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

This was motto I was raised with. I think a lot of Gen-Xers heard the same growing up. But now, in the throes of mid-life, I sincerely question that thinking. There are a lot of things that don't kill you, but definitely take a chunk out of your life. Strength is fleeting. You can train your muscles to lift heavy weights, but if you end up getting sick for several months, that strength will be gone. But your ability to adapt to your condition and recover from damage might be the key to building strength again in the future. That would be resilience, not strength.

While strength is a measure of endurance and toughness. Resilience is a measure of flexibility and adaptability. Darwin's theory of evolution was encapsulated in the idea that the fittest of creatures survive on this Earth. But here, in the midst of the sixth great mass extinction on Earth, we're finding that the fittest creatures have generally been adapted for very specific conditions, and it's the creatures who can adapt that survive, and sometimes thrive. Crows, for example, have found a way to thrive in human cities. I don't worry much about them. They may not have physical strength, but they have a resilience that polar bears don't have. Resilience is where power lies.

Homo Sapiens are highly resilient lifeforms. But our civilizations, our social structures, our institutions and traditions are not as resilient as we might like them to be. They were built to last in an ecosystem that was very different from the one we live in now - and very different from the one we will live in 10, 20, or 50 years from now.

How do we build resilience to what is happening in our world right now?

Not just resilience to the impacts of climate change, but the slurry of other changes that are all interwoven in this complex system we've created - this includes attacks on our civil liberties and human rights by nationalists, autocrats, the tech broligarchy - basically, the new US government.

I credit my time in Homeward Bound, and Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC who coordinated the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 and traveled to Antarctica with us, for helping me understand the role resilience needs to play in our lives and in the world at this moment in history. If you need some inspiration, she is a co-host on the podcast Outrage and Optimism.

Ms. Figueres noted a couple of months ago:

There is a beautiful and crucial link between the resilience of nature and our own personal resilience in the face of the climate crisis. Both have been worn down by our disrespect and abuse over the years but we see now that if we choose to work on restoring nature's resilience, we too are nourished and re-energised - it is simply part of our interconnectedness. This is so critical, especially at times when it's difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. -Christiana Figueres

Personal resilience is a measure of your ability to weather life's storms - to mitigate the risks to yourself and adapt to things that are changing around you.

On a much larger level, resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb or adapt to changes, disturbances, or outside forcing. In a healthy ecosystem, whether this is biological or social, these changes support the well-being of those within the ecosystem. Ultimately, adaptation necessarily involves a shift in culture. Building resilience to climate change demands shifts in our governing structures and our infrastructure, and above all, social cooperation to catalyze these changes. It involves a better understanding of our place in the world, and bringing in voices of traditionally marginalized communities as we figure out how to move forward. It involves understanding our 'interconnectedness', as Christiana Figueres would say.

The timeline for experiencing major, global environmental changes that wreak havoc with the food, water, and energy systems that are at the heart of our civilization turns out to be much shorter than we thought it was going to be. You've already seen havoc. The urgency of the situation and the need to for multilateral international cooperation is only a small part of what makes the current political situation in the US more than a complete shame - it's utterly dangerous. We had so much potential to lead the world toward a just and sustainable future. Sure, there's no perfect way to do this. But the intention was there. That intention is tossed aside with this incoming government, bought and controlled by individuals that are caught up in the cycle that brought us into this precarious moment in history in the first place.

And so, we are on the knife edge. We are in store for at least 2C of global warming in the coming decades. Likely more. The fires, the desertification, the heat waves, the droughts will absolutely get worse.

I realize that there are factions in our culture and in our government that might see me as an inconsequential, whining, middle-aged cat lady. If that's your read on what I'm saying, go read someone else who can echo your world view.

I have spent the past 30 years as a climate scientist trying to understand how our climate system operates. As a scientist, I am familiar with the scientific literature and understand the depth of rigor that goes into making climate change predictions. I have also seen many predictions come to pass - predictions that I did not think would happen in my lifetime. I know this: we will not stop what is happening to our world - or, rather, what we, ourselves, have done to our natural world - and the consequences will reverberate through every aspect of our lives.

But I still have hope that we can move forward despite the roadblocks

Flexibility, adaptability, and resilience. This is how we will survive.

I am not yet old, but I know I won't see our complex global challenges resolved in my lifetime. And what has happened in the the past two weeks in the USA - the attacks on our institutional structures and the Constitution itself - exacerbate all of those global challenges. But I can still work toward the end that I would wish for those who come after me. Not to do so, can only lead to despair.

I posted this on Facebook on November 8, 2024, and I'm bringing these words into this post to remind myself:

One of the things I have learned from my life's work studying climate change is that despair is dangerous. Despair is as detrimental to the climate crisis as climate change denial. Climate change is a 'wicked' problem: 'wicked' refers to complex social or cultural problems that are difficult to solve. The solutions require many small actions by everyone who is able to act.

But despair leads to inaction. It gets you nowhere, and it ripples out to freeze work that truly has an impact.

Yes. You will feel despair at times. It's important to recognize it, and let yourself feel it. But don't get stuck there. Because your despair is contagious. It will make you feel hopeless and that is a blindfold that keeps you from seeing solutions.

There is a lot written about despair and its role in working towards climate change solutions. As a climate change educator, despair is much more difficult to work with than denial. Feel what you need to feel and try to find a way through it. Know that you are not alone. Then roll up your sleeves. Because every small thing you do has a cumulative impact. And we need you.

I write to discover how to move forward, and I think I've reminded myself today that it's time to pull my voice out of the shadows and get to work.

This is where hope lives - in the actions we take each day, no matter how small: the decision to walk to the store, the phone call to your Senator, a donation to the ACLU, the gathering of community for a potluck in the park, and the decision not to bow down in the face of illegal actions by the US government.

I don't know if we will save our US democracy. I don't know if we will be able to give a voice to the people who have not had one. I don't know if we will be able to restore our ecosystems to the extent that the Earth will continue to support our species and our civilization.

But I know that every small action I take makes a difference. And small actions on the scale of many millions of people? That's something.

Now I'm off to learn to bake cookies without eggs. Please share your best egg-free cookie recipes.