The Climate Crisis and Passage of Time
Will Cooper
When I was a young child, I couldn’t wait for my birthday. Aside from the celebration of me with my friends, it also meant I was growing taller, getting stronger, and could go more places without a parent supervising. I was so excited to turn 12 and get my boating license with my friend Steve. We bought a little Zodiac boat and a 3.3 horsepower motor. We could carry them from my house down to the beach on Long Island Sound and putter around fishing for hours chasing schools of snapper or schoolie striped bass. I was excited for the years to pass by so I could turn 16 and get my driver’s license. Then 21 so I could legally buy beer.
Now, while still young at 33, my birthday isn’t as exciting as it used to be. Along with whatever fun might be had, is a gentle reminder that another of my finite years has passed. My body aches a little when I get out of bed in the morning. I feel terrible the day after two cocktails. And while my body and mind still work well, there’s no denying that certain of my bodily functions are aging and getting weaker. I know that if I want to continue to feel good in this body for decades to come, I have to care for it more and more every year and make that a top priority. I only get one body. Only one. And if I drink too much, sleep too little, eat unhealthy, forget to exercise, and put myself in mentally stressful situations more than relaxing ones, I will speed up the rate at which my body slows down it’s regenerating functions and speed up its deterioration.
Behavioral change is hard. But we know that there are certain things we have to prioritize if we want to live long, healthy, and happy lives. And, importantly, we know what happens if we don’t.
In many ways this is where we find ourselves in the midst of the climate crisis.
We’ve known about the perils of the climate crisis for a long time, but for many decades it seemed like a thing that could be solved for in the “future”; maybe along with many of the other environmental degradation issues.
When young, we experience nature without analytical thought. My buddy Steve and I would be down at the beach and say “look at those cool piping plovers!” Now we know these piping plovers are at risk of losing what little habitat they have left in this area so we need to help protect it. We loved fishing in streams and ponds and had little knowledge of how many freshwater fish populations had been decimated and how many more would be over the next 20 years. We love Mother Earth, and she gives us much joy throughout our lives. But as we take more and more and more from her, what she’s able to give will continue to decline. Our species, the human species, will increasingly feel her body slowing down like our own when we don’t take care of it. And as certain of her functions are able to give humans less of what we need to survive on this planet, survival itself will become the focus.
So as we reflect on this past Earth Day…
Was Earth Day 2021 a day to love Mother Nature in all her splendor and beauty? To celebrate all she provides to humans and all other species?
Was it a day to be reminded how damaging human activity has become to her?
Was it a call to action to greatly reduce our destructive practices and ramp up our efforts to help her heal the wounds we’ve left in our wake?
Maybe all of the above?
We must acknowledge where we find ourselves in the climate crisis as well. The acknowledgements require real honest reflections that will make us uncomfortable.
Without a healthy planet that sustains human life, we won’t have…
And my son is only 3 years old…
And the people I speak with who are most knowledgeable on the subject say we only have 6–10 years to enact all the protections and changes needed to…before…
And I really haven’t done as much as I could comfortably do over the past few years despite being personally warned by experts that we only had 8–12 years to…
Now that it has passed, we must acknowledge that every day should be treated like Earth Day and the short timeline is getting shorter every year, and that every year things get worse will make it that much harder for us to ever get back on track.
It’s heavy. Unfortunately, it’s also true.
Fortunately, we know what needs to be done and now it’s just a question of whether or not we have the will to do what’s necessary.
We must act with great speed since we only have a short time frame before the worst effects of the climate crisis are locked in. And, we have to act BIG.
Earth Day must act as a catalyst to us aging grown-ups that if we want our children and grandkids to be able to enjoy their lives with a planet that supports their needs as she has supported ours, and can regenerate herself at a rate that sustains human life, 2021 is the year we need to start doing much more — as much as we can.
If you already are — thank you.
If like me and almost everyone I know, you are not, then let’s commit to taking the steps necessary to have the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time.
Because of the dwindling timeline, we can’t simply vote and then wait around for ambitious government plans to one day kick-in. Similarly, buying EVs and high efficiency appliances are great, especially when powered by solar and wind, but most people can’t currently afford EVs and the build out of renewable energy generation is going to take many years before it can replace fossil fuels to a material extent. The “buy this instead of that” solutions are great and necessary as well, but not enough given the gravity of the situation. We also must consume less. Much less. But that is perhaps the behavioral change that will take longest.
So what can we do to have the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time?
If you are reading this piece on Rainforest Trust’s website, you probably know the answer involves protecting large amounts of land and sea that can sequester and store large amounts of greenhouse gases.
While big ambitious goals like 30 by 30 are awesome and necessary, they are just goals. What’s required is OUR action. WE need to act big. WE need to be ambitious. WE need to be working towards these goals quickly while remembering the ultimate conservation goal of Half-Earth.
Most importantly we must remember that WE CAN do this. It is possible. And to successfully reach our conservation goals, there are a few things we as donors and conservationists should remember:
- Protecting our natural environments that are actively storing and sequestering greenhouse gases allows them to fight global warming for people and other species. This is particularly critical, because unlike other climate threats, destroying forests not only eliminates their ability to sequester and store carbon, but it also releases all the stored carbon back into the atmosphere — it’s a debilitating one-two punch.
- We need to protect them ASAP since the longer we wait the more they get destroyed/degraded and thus become less effective in all their life supporting functions — not just greenhouse gas sequestration.
- We can’t get too caught up with thoughts like “well what about these alternatives…” because ultimately we have to protect existing ecosystems for humans to survive, and donor funded protection through Rainforest Trust is almost always going to be the highest impact move per dollar you and I can make and the fastest way to get results.
- It’s detrimental for you and I to worry too much about “what if I donate and things don’t work out perfectly anyway?” since we know what’s going to happen to these places sooner or later if we don’t try to protect them, and we know the dire consequences of that.
- As I type this sentence, I’m finishing a beer. I’ll limit myself to one. My three year old son is playing with Lego in the living room. My wife is upstairs taking a nap. When I finish this paragraph we will play together in the Saturday afternoon sunshine. It’s great for our hearts in many ways.
Our lives are not dire. The climate crisis is.
We don’t need to be scared. Let’s be optimistic. We don’t need to prepare for an apocalyptic future. Let’s be generous and give so that our future is joyful. We know we must act. The sooner the better. So let’s act and then enjoy our lives knowing that we truly put our money where our mouths are, and that we lived and gave generously to ensure our children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, can live happily as well.
I’m optimistic.
