“You don’t hit bottom,” says an old 12-step adage, “until you stop digging.” In other words: no bad experience, painful consequence, or downright awful time in and of itself will lead people to change. When we are thoughtless, reckless, destructively selfish, or blind to the effects of our actions on ourselves and others – and when all this leads in a Very Bad Direction, we can still hold on to the negative habits and damaging behavior. We can always close our eyes, turn our backs, and deny, deny, deny.
Hurricane Sandy – a mega, super, Franken storm – is a case in point. I would very much like it to be a cliché that such storms, predictable aspects of global climate change, are what our current use of fossil fuels is getting us; and that therefore our political, economic, technological, educational, and spiritual leaders are doing everything in their power to help us change our ways.
But the sad truth is that outside of the still comparatively limited environmental community, and the occasional policy nod towards “maybe doing something serious at some point,” our leaders are pretty much ignoring reality. Yes Bill McKibben and 350.org, the Sierra Club and the odd religious leader, are beating the band. A few minor politicians here and there are doing their best. The odd editorial in the Times or upset piece in a progressive magazine appears.
But where is the outcry, the demand, the absolute shriek of assertion that now, and not sometime after the fabled future economic recovery, is the time to change. Where are the non-stoop headlines in the press about the relation between human action and the size of these new storms? Or the headlines proclaiming “Presidential debates completely ignore most important issue of our time!!!!”? Where are heads of cabinet departments, speakers of the House and leaders of the Senate, presidents, would-be presidents, vice-presidents and joint chiefs of staff and all the others sworn to protect our country? Where is the deafening din of condemnation when a politician dares, as Romney has, to distinguish the health of the planet from the wellbeing of “your family”?
Where are they? If you follow such things you know that for the most part they are Someplace Else.
As I asked last week about presidential politics, I’ll ask again: is there a spiritual response to all this?
First of all, I suggest that it’s not “wrong” or “unspiritual” to be angry, to be critical, to be willing to say – in public and as loudly as you can to anyone who will listen – “this is just not o.k., this is hurtful, and it is not some abstraction called “global warming” or “an environmental problem.” This is people killed, lives shattered, precious homes and property lost, beloved landscapes scarred, and our economy subject to a dreadful blow.” And if there is some anger, frustration, or even a little desperation in your tone, that’s all right.
There is nothing particularly spiritual about always being pleasant. Even the Dalai Lama admitted that “impatience in the cause of world peace” could be a positive emotion. Speaking truth to power is certainly part of the spiritual style – the authentic spiritual style, in any case. For more details consult the writing – or, even better, the lives – of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Joan Chittister, Michael Lerner, Jim Wallis, Ang Sang Suu Kyi, or the prophet Isaiah.
Alongside the anger, however, there is the need to take it all in – and recognize that this is simply the way things are. It makes little difference how correct those of us who talk about environmental problems are, how much truth is on our side, and how far worse things than Sandy are in store for all us. Reality, unfortunately, rarely goes away because we get angry, even if we have good reasons for the way we feel.
For comparison, we might think of the feminist thinkers of the 1600s. There were a few– women inspired by the Reformation’s emphasis on individual choice and conscience, visionaries who realized that women could be as godly as men, and have insights that deserved recognition and respect. History has confirmed the essential truth of these women – but it sure took a long time for that to happen.
Environmentalists of today may face a comparable wait. It could be decades, even centuries, before it becomes commonly accepted that reckless development, wasteful consumption, and the poisons that flow from nuclear plants and military hardware are all to be shunned; that oil is a precious gift from our ancestors, and not to be so causally, cavalierly and carelessly consumed; or that animals are conscious beings, centers of experience and enjoyment even as people are. Ultimately, as humans have (for the most part!) learned that murder is wrong, slavery has no part in civilized life, and people have rights, so we may learn the commonplaces of environmentalism: love of life, respect for ecosystems, modesty in consumption, great care in the implementation of technology, and that community and personal virtue are the sources of true well-being and consumerism is not.
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 niinrty 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 seventeenth 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.
Roger S. Gottlieb (gottlieb@wpi.edu) is professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic institute. His new book – Spirituality: What it Is and Why it Matters – will be out in a month from Oxford University Press.
There is one very major difference between the historical progressive issues used as examples in the article and climate change. The science is getting clearer and clearer – we are rapidly approaching a tipping point after which the warming will be unstoppable on its way to a new equilibrium somewhere around +12degC and more than 1,000ppm of CO2. The last time this happened 65 million years ago, about 95% of all life on Earth went extinct due to the complete destruction of the ecosystem.
We can see that the ocean is dying from acidity now, with a major portion of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef gone. The Arctic is heating, melting and starting to release quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas 20X more potent than CO2. New York has now seen sea level rise up close and personal. We are past the point where we can politely wait for the deniers to go extinct and be replaced by more progressive generations. We are way past the best time to stop digging, but we can still stop now. Will we?
Rather than thinking of 17th Century feminists, we can take the REALLY long view and look at geologic time, as Wes did. Perhaps 100 million years from now things will get better. From what I understand, we have about 4 billion years before the sun burns out.
What I hear in this very thoughtful essay by Roger Gottlieb (thank you, Roger) is a call to deep acceptance of the dire situation in which we find ourselves both in terms of science (you can’t win an argument with chemistry and physics) and in terms of politics (we have a long way to go in this country before what is scientifically necessary to do become politically possible). We DO need “to take it all in” and to recognize that this is truly how things are. Human beings may indeed take down not only the human civilization that we have created around the world over the past 10,000 years, but also other species, and perhaps our own species, as well. Out of a deep acceptance of reality can spring up a new passion for healing and justice that does not depend for its motivation on the expectation of a favorable outcome. We work hard to save life not because we think we have a good chance of winning, but simply because we love life. We may not succeed in saving life, but we refuse to give up on love, and on acting with love. And who knows? If enough of us abide in love, and act in love, love may yet prevail.
Amen Margaret. Love is its own reward. But it’s not a reward that comes easy…