Climate Change Anxiety

I debated whether or not to post this piece, but I believe it is important, so here it is. The BBC talked to some people who feel Climate Change Anxiety. I too have been gripped by this anxiety and it was helpful to hear others talk about it.

I found myself, after the last climate change report came out several months ago, feeling an overwhelming despair, not for what was "about" to come or what "might" happen, but for what has already been set in motion and "is" on the way and cannot be changed, according to the climate change report...and everything that is currently happening, the cyclones, the hurricanes, the forest fires (my home state of California had the worst year for forest fires ever), the horrendous flooding in Nebraska. And from this, the displacement of people and their lives (which will create a domestic refugee situation...where are all these people going to go?), the staggering cost of damage to homes and infrastructure from these climate change events. I looked at an on-line interactive map which shows what would happen to my surrounding area here in the Bay Area with various water lines. Even with minimal flooding, say at four or five feet , there are parts on the map that will be permanently flooded. True, four or five feet does not mean that an area will be UNDER water, but it nonetheless makes that area unusable. Not to mention the disruption to utilities that other areas which are not flooded will suffer...disruption and possible destruction of roadways and highways and freeways, water supply lines, electricity lines, and sewer lines. Make no mistake: what's coming is going to be bad. Really bad. For all of us. It's not a sci-fi film. The damage has already been done and is irreversible. It's happening. Right now. Look around.

But we can mitigate it so it is not even worse. We have to keep trying, keep making better and better choices, not just for some Utopian eco-green idea of "the planet" but for our own survival on a very real, visceral level.

I don't have the answers, and while some people and groups do have some answers, no one has them all. It could be that there are no answers. We must simply brace for the storms and floods and fires to come and do the best we can, while attempting to contain the damage that has been done.