01 January 2023

2023

 

The effort of imagination is to turn the boundary into a horizon. The boundary says, here and no further. The horizon says, welcome.
Barry Lopez

 

Let us lose our cool. Let us think of the billions of people who will come after us and lose our cool.

The apocalypse is the wrong story to tell about climate change. It’s self-serving, exploitative, clickbait rhetoric that paralyzes us with fear and excuses any action. It's so easy to blather on about collapse. Pick up some climate predictions, read them at a moment when you're not feeling well, cobble together some horror news, there's your apocalypse. But really, it's just lazy to put something like that out in the world. You take what you already perceive around you and extrapolate it into the future. That's so convenient because you don't have to change anything. Yes I get it. Looking into the future and not just seeing darkness is not easy. Imagining something new is fucking difficult. But the impulse to act never comes from staying calm. It comes from emotion. From excitement. From hope and from love. There is a great deal of work to do, and as climate change continues there will be even more. 

Remember: small changes are phenomenal. It’s not just about impact, it’s about our soul, about living the best life we can in respect of each other and the life around us. Let's concentrate on that. Let's work for a society that is not based on individualism and competition, but on trust and care, a democracy that is not representative, but direct, an economy based not on extractivism but on cycles.

We have all the tools.


Rather than feel impotent and useless, you must come to terms with the fact that as a human being you are infinitely powerful, and take responsibility for this tremendous power. Even our smallest actions have potential for great change, positively or negatively, and the way in which we all conduct ourselves within the world means something. You are anything but impotent, you are, in fact, exquisitely and frighteningly dynamic, as are we all, and with all respect you have an obligation to stand up and take responsibility for that potential. It is your most ordinary and urgent duty.

Nick Cave 

 

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel

13 comments:

NewRobin13 said...

These are such thoughtful and inspiring quotes. An excellent way to begin this new year. I hadn't even thought about my quiet acceptance of all that is wrong and instead losing my cool about it. Thank you for that. Happy New Year.

Linda Dev said...

I needed to hear just that this morning. A reminder of who I am.

Happy New Year Sabine. The best to you and yours.

Barbara Rogers said...

I'd like to share this beyond Blogger. My friends would love it too. Thanks so much for turning my climate crisis attention in the direction it belongs.

ellen abbott said...

I'm a big science fiction fan. There was a time when that was all I read and many of the advances we have now were first imagined by science fiction writers. I read many books where humans, after destroying the surface of the planet as we are in the process of doing, went underground. I hope that isn't the future for humans. How sad not to see a blue sky and rivers and lakes and green growth, a living planet. I don't see how we could flourish underground.

I may live another 20 years, long enough, I think, to see if enough people care enough, if enough people make those small changes. I'll be 73 this year. I've been carrying my own bags and recycling whatever I could, at first glass, aluminum cans, and paper, since my 30s. One person, small change. I don't think I made much impact on the world at large. I still recycle all I can but out here in this small town they take far less than what I could recycle in the city, just aluminum cans, paper and plastics #1 & 2, cardboard. Cardboard is the easiest thing to recycle and yet every trash day when I walk the dog neighbors have set out cardboard boxes for the trash. They just can't be bothered.

Ms. Moon said...

Of course the temptation is to always think that the small things we CAN do will make no difference in the end, and thus, don't even bother. It is hard not to adopt that mindset.

Colette said...

Thank you for this hope.

am said...

Those are the words I need to keep in mind and heart for 2023 and beyond. Thank you.

Pixie said...

I am hopeful that people will change how we do things, but also a realist, and don't think people will do much until they're forced to change. I often feel helpless. My own provincial government refuses to accept climate change and wants the status quo.

I don't feel like I am infinitely powerful, mostly just overwhelmed, although I did toilet train a stubborn three year old, so there's that:)

Elizabeth said...

Thank you for your words and these other great ones -- onward.

Steve Reed said...

Thanks for the empowering words. It's easy to forget that what we do really DOES have an impact, at the very least on the people around us.

37paddington said...

I always find such wisdom and inspiration here. Thank you, Sabine. I am glad to be around your fire.

jozien said...

Let's loose our cool, i love it! haha it is hard, what can i do right now to make a change?.... i know it, i am always craving snacks, as i am skinny there is no boundary, but for now to you i promise no snacks till supper time. And i do like your comment on care and trust, in general and also through this blogging i learn we can trust a lot of others, we all want to live in a better place.

Roderick Robinson said...

I'm a Havel enthusiast but just who are those that see hope as a conviction that something will turn out well. Perhaps they do not exist since that half of the sentence is used negatively. But then why evoke them?