It seems dreadfully clear that much suffering will unfold before these lessons become truisms. Is that a cause for anger and grief? Surely. But perhaps we should keep in mind that life has a common tendency to proceed through suffering. More than 90 percent of all the species that ever existed are now extinct. Every living being lives only because it can consume the body of some other living being. We are all born, in the end, to die. Once we accept that birth and death, existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain, are inextricably intertwined, we can be a little less heartbroken over all the suffering our country, culture, and civilization are creating.
But there is a long distance between not being paralyzed by the spectacle of death and devastation and calmly accepting it. If life has created redwood trees, trout, and spectacular sunsets, it has also created people. If the eagles fly and the dolphins leap playfully through the waves, human beings can think—and care. And reason. And work together to make things better.
It may be that too many years from now people will look back at the environmentalists of today as we look back at the feminists of the 17th century. "How brave and far-sighted they were," such people might say. "How ahead of their time. And how lonely and despairing they must have felt. Isn't it wonderful they did anything at all? They really are an inspiration."
Such may be our fate now, in 2012, in the aftermath of one of the early superstorms that climate change is sure to bring.
Let's make the most of it. Keep the faith, and let everyone within the sound of your voice, pen, or Twitter account know that there is a better way to live.
We don't, we really don't, have to keep digging.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In