Calm in the eye of the storm?

v: The Climate Column

Calm in the eye of the storm?

Patrick Dunne

I am writing this on the 14 th of March. From here, it is 233 days until 1 st November; the opening day of COP26— the largest and most important climate talks in human history — hosted by the UK, in Glasgow. This is my first column for Herbology News. It will go out in the March edition, which has ‘calm’ as its theme.

I think it is fair to say that I find it difficult to be calm about the climate at the moment, and have been anything but calm about it for a number of years.

Since this edition of Herbology News also features the brain, I was inspired to explore how we collectively understand the challenges facing our climate— intellectually —and how this information inspires us to act in some cases, and to respond with apathy or even denial in others. I wanted to write something interesting and impressive and engaging about corporate misinformation, political sleight of hand and the depths of financial interests; that might expose how the climate crisis and the collapse of global biodiversity are hidden, supported and funded. I wanted to tie our intellectual understanding of the crisis to those forces in whose interests we are enmeshed, who benefit from our lack of understanding, our collective lack of action. I wanted to write something about how our heads can understand the implications of climate breakdown, but our hearts can fail to act in accordance with the scale of the crisis. How, as a society, we can go on prioritising money, convenience, and selfish goals over the lives of all of the people and living beings that share this earth with us. How we can vote for politicians who would rather sell the world of tomorrow for the power of today. How we can watch refugee crises unfold as we expand airports and sell weapons, build coalmines, buy and sell single-use rubbish. All this, and somehow our brains can fail to connect it together, link it to the web of life and all things. This, of course, is a big subject. Too big for this one column, this one month. Too big for me. There are excellent writers and activists across the world who have written outstanding books on these subjects. I should finish reading the ones I’ve started, and purchase— from independent booksellers —some of the others I’ve been meaning to get; the Klein, the Oreskes and Conway, the IPCC Report. These are good places to start your reading, and they will underpin this column, as it attempts to unpack some of these complex issues and themes. We’ll be keeping an interested eye on how the COP talks shape up, and the response from activists at home and abroad. We’ll try to track some of the policies and their implications and impacts— be they positive or negative —on our climate.

Meanwhile, I’m left with the staggering thought that it’s a little over 200 days until decisions are made— no doubt to great fanfare —about how we, as a global community, will manage the climate crisis currently engulfing our world in floods, fires and famine. I am saddened by the knowledge of just how many people, nations and cultures are already being excluded from those talks and that 'global community.' I am fearful of the technological, financial and political fixes that will be heralded as great solutions, whilst too much is allowed to carry on as usual and not enough is changed or challenged.

So, unfortunately, I am not calm. I am often afraid. I am often angry. I am sometimes paralysed by hopelessness and enraged by injustices, frustrated by my own lack of action and empathy. But I am also hopeful. Occasionally. In the past few years we have seen unprecedented activism; popular rebellions, school strikes, and protests. We have seen our government declare a climate emergency (though we can discuss what that has meaningfully led to in terms of policy). We have seen a global focus on climate justice and indigenous rights, often driven by young activists. We have seen global activism coordinated on Zoom (yes, before most of us had even heard of it, the school strikers used that very platform to organise some of the largest protests we have seen in our lifetimes). And we will see the largest and most diverse family of activists, frontline communities and ordinary people demanding more from COP26 than has ever been asked of any COP in the past 30 years.

And I’m hopeful because my oldest neice has just turned eight, my youngest nephew is about to turn one, and my sister-in-law’s pregnancy is now two days overdue. I am hopeful, as well as angry and sad and fearful. I have to be hopeful, because what else can I do?

References: Oreskes, N. and Conway, E.M. (2010) Merchants of Doubt. Simon & Schuster: London Klein, N. (2015) This Changes Everything. Bloomsbury: London Macy, J. and Johnstone, C. (2012) Active Hope. New World Library: Novato, California IPCC (2018) ‘Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees: A Special Report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’. Available to download at https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/