The IPCC’s 3,949-page-long report struck many people with fear when it was released this Monday. The report’s takeaways can be reduced to the following (but scroll to the bottom of this post to see an overview “By the Numbers”):
Humans irrefutably cause and have caused global warming, and
Because of human action, until at least 2050, there will be “increases in the frequency and intensity of hot extremes, marine heatwaves, and heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions, and proportion of intense tropical cyclones, as well as reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost.” Our best hope now is to save the world beyond 2050 and hopefully reduce impact to 1.4 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
It’s no wonder that this report has caused fear. A doomsday sentencing should be cause for anxiety. It should at least remain the top news story for more than 1 day.
For climate scientists, activists, and advocates who have been waiting for an update to the IPCC report since 2013 like fans begging their favorite artist to drop another album, this broadcast— and with 2 more scheduled for next year’s lineup!— comes at a critical time.
This is no joyous situation— this is aid to the emergency room. Climate is our life, and its negative change is our death. We should be past the point of wondering if global warming is an appropriate topic to bring up “at the office” (pre-COVID figure of speech) or asking friends if they’ve read the news as if this doomsday report is no more than a current event with a quippy headline (quippy = Journalism-speak for quirky).
The long-awaited validation and publication of our climate’s urgency is fuel for a positive direction. The IPCC makes it clear— this crisis affects us all. And luckily, you don’t need a science or medical degree to help save lives here. The point is that “no one person can do everything, but everyone can do something,” and we need all the somethings we can get.
Here outside the crisis room on the linoleum waiting room floors, I’ve spent many hours wondering what my “something” will be. I’ve been threading a wick together in my mind, which is “How can I help?”
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist, litigator, podcaster, policy writer, anthology editor, essayist, spokesperson, and all-around legendary Earth-saving MVP, breaks this overwhelming question down into a 3-part Venn diagram designed to guide anyone into creating an effective and fulfilling contribution.
I have been thinking deeply about my vocation through this Venn diagram and how I can be of service. (What am I good at? Writing. Working with children. Knowing stuff about mental health. What brings me joy? Seashells. My boyfriend. Stories. Nature. What needs doing? Human connection. Stop world death.)
Even with Dr. Ayana and the Venn diagram’s help, this has been a difficult question to answer. Reading the IPCC report was like igniting the wick’s spark and clarifying precisely for me which gap I can fill for the climate cause.
A Layperson’s Reaction (to the 40-page summary)
I shielded myself emotionally from the news that I may or may not be alive in 2050.
And then I wondered: How can it be that humans have willingly put themselves and all life in such a fatal situation for immediate personal gain?
I struggle to comprehend the utter lack of ethics from human beings who think and feel, and the only response I can fathom is that our species is diseased.
The Human Disease
One of the ways that indigenous spokespersons such as Robin Wall Kimmerer and Sherri Mitchell speak out about our disconnect from the natural world is through sharing the creation myths that they have been raised with such as the Sky Woman. The difference between this creation story and the ones that most Americans have been taught is humans’ role in relation to the other living beings.
In the story of the Sky Woman, the first woman falls to an earth that is completely covered in water. Two swans support her but cannot hold her, so a turtle joins in to help, and a muskrat dives to the bottom of the water to find land for her to stand on. The muskrat dies in the process, sacrificing his life for that of the Sky woman’s. Out of gratitude, Sky woman tends to that land, growing it and planting it with the seeds and fruits she brought with her, to give thanks and share her home with the animals.
Sounds a little different from the one you might be familiar with, right? Daniel Quinn comments on the influence of creation myths through a character in his book Ishmael:
“There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”
Creation myths, like the totems in the movie Inception, root themselves in our minds and guide all of the emergent culture. Punished for eating fruit and for listening to an animal? The story will breed mistrust and defensiveness, or the need to perpetually prove one’s value. Assisted by animals and making something great together? The story will breed trust and ironically, self-esteem, but without a superiority fallacy— interdependence.
One myth reigns supreme in the United States, and we can track the resulting egocentrism.
Ahem:
Guess which countries will also be hit hardest by climate change and least prepared to manage unprecedented disaster?
While we as individuals are not personally culpable for the world’s destruction, we collectively as humans, and particularly as a nation, are responsible. (With me? Great. Not with me? Comment your thoughts.)
Humans view ourselves as separate from and superior to other species because we possess what we believe to be more complex executive functioning, which we follow without question to our detriment.
Apart from the glaring climate crisis, let me share an example.
Our Beloved Boxes
We humans make sense of things by compartmentalizing concepts into boxes which we can then work with confidently. This categorization helps us to prioritize our limited mental energy, but it also prevents us from continually developing our understanding as circumstances change. Once something is finally figured out, packed carefully to fit with other items in a box, and sealed in heavy-grade tape, you’re going to be too tired to take it out and start over. How do you un-Sharpie?
Then, when any new issue arises, we see which pre-existing box it most closely resembles and stick it in there. At some point, that box is going to be impossible to carry.
Mental Health: whenever somebody is struggling, the response is to send them to a therapist, prescribe them with a drug, have them admitted into a facility.
We send the person in need away rather than bring them in. It’s not our problem; it’s their problem, and this is how we are helping them. And, best of all, they don’t have to deal with their problem either, because there are professionals whose job is to take care of it for them.
The box is already packed, and it’s easy to edit the address, stick another stamp on, and forward it along. We own the box (knowing the right answer)—and!—we aren’t responsible for its consequences (however that person’s mental health progresses). It’s a classic “have your cake and eat it too.”
I’m guilty of this, too. At nearly every session with my therapist, I throw her hooks for what I call “magic answers”: How do I show my partner affection? How do I succeed at my job? Tell me the words to say!
I want the improvement, but I’m reluctant to do the uncomfortable work that must be done and that I’m not exempt from. Someone very wise once told me, “If you’re not doing work, someone else is.”
Where the Climate is Concerned: Throwing Money on the Fire
Our foolish fossil fueler CEOs, despite their illustrious titles and paychecks, are not above this basic human shortcoming. Otherwise, they would not have relied on fossil fuels to make money, even when doing so will end up costing us our lives while creating an economy around renewable energy could have been equally as lucrative.
The catch here is “could have been.” Nobody wanted to go through all of that work opening the packing tape and unpacking the box for a non-guaranteed win. None of the CEOs would relinquish the scissors for fear of sharing their already-guaranteed wealth. But they were very foolish fossil fuelers to think that doggedly continuing into finite and murderous oil and coal was a guaranteed path.
The same wise someone has told me (on multiple occasions), “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” We humans fail to follow natural laws because we prefer our own complex and Psychologically-influenced logic. And then we fail to take responsibility for the fallout. We try to have our cake and eat it too, but cake is not infinite, and eventually everybody starves.
Time for Us to Get to Work
So when the IPCC report comes out, there’s a lot of talk over who’s to blame and not enough breaking of pre-conceived notions, restrictive definitions, and stale systems that do not serve us.
It doesn’t matter who’s to blame. We’re all going to die. This is our problem, and there’s no super-villain who flipped a switch or superhero more capable of the average human of un-flipping it who can take care of it for us.
We are all humans, and this is our work. There are no magic answers, but our sliver of opportunity is closing and we have to pull off some movie magic spins like Indiana Jones sliding under a wall as the cave collapses around him.
As Daniel Quinn says, we are not fundamentally evil creatures. Just as we are not better than any other species, we are not worse than any other species. We’ve just grown up under the influence of a biased story, and it’s time to heal for a better future.
How I see my part in Healing Humanity to save the Planet, because I like flowers more than Mars
The IPCC can—and has—offered up all the facts that science can yield about our impending doom. But ultimately? Humans will do what they want.
In order to heal the climate, humans need to be in a place where we want to save the world; where we crave a better future than the one we are living in now and are willing to work for it.
Sylvia Earle said, “You have to love it before you’re moved to save it.”
So I see my job—as a writer, mental health advocate, neuroscientist, and nature lover, as moving people to heal from a diseased dialogue and detrimental narratives. I want to do my part to promote a culture of emotional wisdom and interdependency so that the burden isn’t solely on therapists and healthcare professionals to unpack our boxed diagnoses in what society determines to be acceptable times and places.
Key word here is promote. I have academic and clinical credibility, but I have not cracked the code to ridding myself of all disease. I’m prone to the same egocentrism that I fault the U.S. for, and I stubbornly follow rabbit holes that my executive functioning sends me down.
My job in this climate crisis is to uplift and amplify the wisest among us. These are the ones who live unchallenged by psychologically-compounded egos and have been making the world a beautiful place for millions of years: the flora and fauna that we live among.
“I have amazing news for you. Man is not alone on this planet. He is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely” (Ishmael).
Through this newsletter, we’ll un-learn and re-learn the fundamentals of life and interaction from the professionals and the humans who model after them. This is not easy work. There are easier ways of being, and we have done them, and we are trapped in their consequences. We’ll practice, and we’ll fail—a lot—but we literally have no choice but to try as we show up for the planet. But believe me, this is the most rewarding work that we could possibly have the pleasure of doing as humans.
So stay tuned to learn how to be a good human. Remember learning manners and feelings from your parents and teachers growing up? This is just like that. Our IDs tout numbers that label us as adults, but that plastic certificate doesn’t mean we’ve reached the finish line. Physical adulthood means that we are socially entrusted with the capability of choosing our next parents and teachers to continue the education even though our egos don’t see it that way, and many people choose to drop out. But when you opt in to life, you’ll see that your parents and teachers are all around you and are ones of a myriad community of exquisite species that make up our earth ecosystem. Let’s show our gratitude and join forces to respond to the report.
Calls to Action
Make your own 3-part Venn diagram and post it here or email it to me!
Ask 3 people if they’ve heard of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report, and share the news with them if they haven’t.
Follow one of the links from this article to learn more about the climate movement from the experts.
Let me know which flora or fauna you’d like to learn from
IPCC 6th Assessment Report By the Numbers
0 net carbon emissions required to be reached to stabilize global warming
0.5 increments of degrees celsius raised to cause discernible increases in the intensity and frequency of heat extremes
1.1 degrees celsius warmer now than pre-industrial levels
1.5 is the cutoff set by the Paris Agreement to stop climate collapse — a target that all simulated models say is “more likely than not” to be reached by the end of the 21st century
3.0 degrees celsius warmer is the number predicted to be hit within the 21st Century if we do not take drastic measures now
42 pages in the report summary
195 countries approved the report summary
234 scientists contributed to this report
1,000 global tons of carbon emission (each) to cause 0.27 - 0.63 degree increase in global surface temperature (with best estimate of 0.45)
1850 (at least) was the last year since the Earth had a 5-year period with heat levels this high
1850 (at least) was the last year since annual average Arctic sea ice area was this low
2,000 is the number of years since global surface temperatures have risen this fast in a 50-year period
2100 is the year by which “extreme sea level events” will occur annually, as opposed to once a century
2050 is the earliest year in which global temperatures could stop rising
3,000 (at least) years since sea levels have been this high
3,949 pages in the report
11,000 years since the global ocean has warmed this quickly
14,000 citations within the report
125,000 years since the Earth had a decade this hot
800,000 years since the Earths atmosphere had this much methane and nitrous oxide
2,000,000 (million) years since the Earth had as much carbon dioxide in its atmosphere as it did in 2019
40,000,000 (billion) tons of carbon dioxide emitted per year on average
2,400,000,000 (billion) tons of carbon dioxide emitted to date
Click here to see the report
Links
IPCC Report
Max Lucado quote “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something” from Outlive Your Life: You were Made to Make a Difference
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s website
How to Save a Planet Podcast
All We Can Save Anthology
Climable.org blog
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s website of the Potawatomi Nation
Sherri Mitchell’s website of the Penobscot Nation
Ishmael website inspired by the book
Inception movie clip
WWF Living Planet 2020 Report
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark clip
Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue
Comment with which flora or fauna you’d like to learn from