A dear college friend, Megan Willems, posted on Facebook today about her longtime connection to Earth Day, and about her realization that while the we, the human race, may not survive our own behaviors with respect to our planet-home, the Earth itself likely will; it will surely look different, but the Earth will survive humanity’s missteps.
I have never had a specific connection to Earth Day, but for some time I’ve carried around a sort of vague panic, sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background of my day-to-day, about the the trajectory of Earth’s long-term well-being. After reading Megan’s post it occurred to me that what I’m really afraid of is not the health of the planet, but the fate of the people who inhabit it: the human race, my family and friends, and me.
It’s not lost on me, as I sit here writing from quarantine in California, that the pandemic we are facing and the issue of climate change exist in eerie parallel. Both problems have spawned an impressive litany of bar charts, theories, projections and analyses. Both have polarized people politically and ideologically. Neither problem, science instructs us, end well for our species if left to its natural course. But, importantly, both are embedded—somewhere in the space between fear and progress, where hope lives—with the potential for all of humanity to emerge healthier and happier on the the other side.
I believe it to be a symptom of living in a busy, instant-gratification-oriented culture (which many, though certainly not all of us, do) that we tend to conduct our lives reactively. We block and tackle, we put out fires. Our disparate reactions as a species to the different but parallel problems of the coronavirus and of climate change bear this out in such a clear and almost poignant way; we rush with all the resources we can muster at eradicating the virus—a clear and present danger—and yet continue to put off even attempting to meaningfully untangle the challenges of saving our Earth.
I know it’s raining in Seattle, but the day here in the desert is truly a miracle. It seems like all the earth is brilliantly shining in celebration of its eponymous holiday, with the blue sky bright and the hummingbirds making their cheerful way from flower to flower. The water I’m drinking is clean and the air is hot but clear. I breathe deeply both to fill my lungs and to calm my soul—both feel equally necessary. Every day is a new day to do no harm, to learn a lesson, to appreciate our gifts. Surely, surely, we will come out healthier and happier on the other side.
Today, deep breaths and our planet are my joy. #joyinplace
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