This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released The Synthesis Report, the final installment of its current reporting cycle. It’s a massive undertaking that pulls together a dizzying number of international publications to express a global scientific consensus about where humanity is at with the climate crisis, and where we need to go. Yes, the conclusion is dire. Yes, it’s crushing to read. Our addiction to fossil fuels is destroying the habitability of the planet, and yes there’s still time and room to improve the outcomes, but that window is rapidly closing. Our already laid efforts to curb emissions are a start, but nowhere near radical enough to meet the moment. Here is the panel’s warning:
And yet: as climate activist Dr. Genevieve Guenther points out, for the first time ever, the report calls out fossil fuels in its headline statements and states straight-up that carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure would cause us to blow past 1.5°C. So, it’s not just that we can’t build more fossil fuel projects going forward – we actually can’t continue to coexist with the ones we have now and meet that goal. This is big progress when you consider that the Paris Agreement doesn’t even mention fossil fuels.
We need a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. This necessary campaign was launched by the trailblazing Canadian climate strategist Tzeporah Berman and partners.
Every decision we make as a society from this point forward contains huge potential: it will either take us toward a sustainable future, or away from one. Every decision will matter. And while that’s a daunting place to be, it’s also, possibly, a very empowering one.
But where’s the time and space in our culture to absorb this?
We’ve seen these reports over and over through the years, each more urgent than the last. We know the news is bleak. We know the scientists are yanking on the alarm bell with ever-increasing desperation. But let’s consider the enormity of this message beside the absolutely miniscule, even non-existent, time and space our society gives us to process it.
Source: Dr. Elizabeth Sawin (Twitter @bethsawin)
It’s bananas that this just drifts away into the ether of old news, as whatever new inane thing Elon did takes up space. What other option do people have besides stuffing their feelings down into a tight ball so they can dutifully get back to returning emails and paying hydro bills and picking their kids up from school? How can we expect people to act when they’re never permitted to pause and really feel the boldness and bigness of the action required?
Image credit: Gen Dread
And now we want to hear from you:
How does this week’s IPCC report make you feel?
Imagine we lived in a world that actually afforded us the time and space to sit with the difficult feelings that naturally arise from the IPCC report and other similar climate bombshells in the news. What would that look like to you in practice?
What new rituals, customs, or institutional norms would help you process your feelings and figure out how you want to act at this time?
1a. I'm quite honestly ignoring the IPCC report because I want to focus on what I can do *locally* in my community and through my business. In the Climate Solutions Cohort we run (https://www.soapboxproject.org/community/join), we focus on actions that are meaningful to us, our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods etc. to build self-efficacy.
1b. I want to un-ostrich myself to see what I can do about the implications of banking. A company I'm on the board for uses Chase, and I want to start a conversation on whether this is aligned and what we can do.
2. I'd be at the park right now laying in the sunshine and not at my computer!
Personally as a person barely pushing on 20 years old, this new ipcc report frankly makes me feel pretty hopeless and like there's no point going on anymore. Given how entrenched our world is in our capitalist, greed driven system, I don't see us globally making the necessary changes quick enough to keep our world from going over the edge. When we most need to be cooperating on a global scale, we're instead fighting proxy wars, being slung misinformation, having our rights stripped, and becoming more and more polarized. I really want to believe there's something we can actually do, but it truly seems as if no one cares until it's too late. Sorry for being pessimistic, it's just really how I feel about this all currently.
I feel confused and anxious. I have so many questions about the climate crisis and I really want to understand it better, but I've struggled to make sense of it all. It doesn't help that everyone on social media seems to come out of the woodwork with their own foregone conclusions. Then again, Gen Dread helped me understand that both my reaction and those of others come from the impulse to eliminate uncertainty. I'm trying not to feed my compulsion to see what everyone has to say and try to figure out if they are right, as I know it's a fruitless task. I'm also bracing myself for every news headline and whether they manage to maintain the nuances of the report. (Side note: anyone else think it's funny how there seem to only be a few kinds of images that get used in news reports, namely a picture of a smokestack, the Earth on fire, or a natural disaster?) I feel an intense sense of cognitive dissonance. It's like, we keep getting told we need to stop emitting carbon, but people respond by saying, "Well it's not practical or realistic to do X, Y, or Z."
I wish everyone wasn't so uncomfortable talking about it in their daily lives. If there ever was a topic people avoided like the plague, it's this one. I see a lot of people trying to mask their fears with humor. I've also seen those who share their fear get invalidated and dismissed. I just want a way to honestly share feelings without devolving into cynicism or apathy. I think it would be ideal if everyone could set aside time to have conversations at work, school, or home about what they are thinking and doing, and what else they might do going forward.
Angry. We've know for so so long now. I just want to start seeing some actual physical changes... not meetings, not conferences, not discussion. I want to see more people with the power to make changes - speaking out. I want to see more MSM coverage , and not framed as a "left' issue. I want to see Biden rescind his pledge to open Willow. I want to see those who consume the most start to lead and demand change on this instead of protecting their "lifestyle" and "interests." I would like there to be places to go to be with people on IPCC days. Or other days too. To have coffee or a drink and discuss where and how to place these feelings.
"What new rituals, customs, or institutional norms would help you process your feelings and figure out how you want to act at this time?"
Honestly, I think we need some kind of spiritual community that just exists to provide communal and relational and emotional support for all of us who deeply feel the pain of the changing climate. Like a climate church or climate support group or something, with regular meetings and community support and action.
Angry, frustrated... and anxious for my kids and the future. It is inconceivable to me how people and corporations can prioritize themselves, in the present, over the future for everyone. And with no tangible consequences to those actions.
I need to find more hope and spend time with like-minded people.
“Mom – I’m really scared. Is this the apocalypse?”
I woke up blurry-eyed in the middle of the night to a text message from Emet, one of my children. Emet had just read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent forecast. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to respond to my kid. I couldn’t make Emet feel better. Because I was scared, too.
All my life, I’ve prided myself on being a good mother. Emet and Zoie are adults now, and they’re embarking on their own futures. But as their mom, I worry about what kind of future they’ll have. "
I really appreciate the framing of this article. Having the space (or not) to sit with this is *everything*. Not having the space... or knowing how to create it... or even why that is necessary... are all part of the problem. It’s easy for business-as-usual when we don’t have space to process such big, deep, intense emotions. The vast majority don’t have the capacity for the immense fear, grief, guilt, etc. It’s simply too much. And not due to any fault of their own. Our Western way of living has thrown out this tool belt.
I want to connect with nature. I want to enjoy the beauty that still exists all around us. Not to escape - but to experience what is truly real.
I want to share that with my wife and my baby girl. I want to share that with everyone. I want people to feel that what we have is precious and that relating to it is critical - not only for our own well-being but for the well-being of the entire ecosystem, locally and globally.
I want to continue to connect with people who want to live differently and be part of a better, more just future.
Finally, I’m intrigued about creating a “spiritual community” (but like, not culty lol) in this likeness - one where we can feel more connected with ourselves, each other, and the natural world. If you’re interested / have suggestions / what you’re looking for in a community, I’d love to hear from you! I myself crave this and I believe a true sense of belonging is what many of us deeply need.
Hi there, I too find time in nature is a good way to process feelings and sometimes even find some inspiration - and has all kinds of other health benefits! https://www.parkprescriptions.ca/ .
I also agree with other posters that this is a crisis beyond just climate, a crisis of ethos and spirit (spiritual crisis) which will require a change in mindset and worldview, in which we need to value all life and all the living and non-living beings.
Envisioning that kind of future gives me hope for something better for my kids (teenagers) and gives me a sense of peace for what might lie beyond all the difficult times ahead. It inspires me to work towards better "spiritual" health, beyond just the climate crisis. And I'm driven by the responsibility to youth - to those of you who are younger: please know there are many of us working hard for your future!
This week’s IPCC report makes me want to weep. If we lived in a world that afforded us the time and space to sit with the difficult feelings that arise from this IPCC report, if other similar climate bombshells were given the regularity and priority they so deserve in the news, we would be acting, collectively, to solve the crisis from the top down, middle out, and bottom up. The covid pandemic demonstrated how we CAN and DO change our behaviours DRASTICALLY for the common good. Shared beliefs lead to shared cultural changes in behaviour. The climate and ecological emergency underpins everything. While world leaders continually strive for perpetual growth on a finite planet, while GDP and profit rule decision making, while we all carry on with business as usual, nothing changes.
What new rituals, customs, or institutional norms would help? As a teacher, I’ll focus on schools - we need the UK climate schools strategy to become policy; we need ofsted to make addressing and acting on the climate crisis a priority, with a level of accountability; we need all subjects promoting nature connectedness, teaching sustainability, and raising awareness of the climate and ecological emergency; we need to adapt school buildings and green up the grounds; we need space in the school day for teacher training and pupil learning and reflection; we desperately need honest conversations with everyone, everywhere, all at once.
Personally I think that the words 1.5 degrees should be clarified. I know many people who think 1.5degrees is fine. If your countries average summer temperatures is say 22 degrees they think that 23.5 degrees is fine. No problem. What people need to know is that 1.5degrees means the end of the world as we know it. No air conditioning will help.
This week's report makes me want to cry--for all the current and future climate refugees, for those are or will be suffering in place, for my grandchildren and everyone else's progeny and the challenging lives they will lead. The report also makes me feel vindicated. As a sustainability coordinator, I am leading/pushing/cajoling my organization toward its first public commitment to improve sustainability. I wonder if the decision-makers have seen this report and how they think about it in relation to our organization. It wish we could just have a human-to-human conversation about these things outside of the formal presentation/decision process.
I can see the change in attitudes altering through my lifetime and bending especially sharply in the last few years. That gives me hope. I think the IPCC report's plain language on fossil fuels is the kind of thing that helps pressure governments (and really, all our bikesharing vegan dogoodery is nothing compared to what governments can do) to account in policy decisions not just for next year's GDP/inflation/immigration goals, but for life expectancy and overall standard of living.
If we took these things as seriously and deeply as they deserve, we'd look at big things like planned extraction projects and actually cost out what it would look like if we didn't proceed. What's the geopolitical cost? Can we live with that? How do the other major policy agenda items relate to this? What's the least carbon-intensive way to solve the housing crisis? (Hint: it's neither building highway-dependent SFHs nor endlessly hand-wringing about "neighbourhood character.") What would be the impacts on the healthcare system? Etc. It's the climate, FFS: it's literally everything.
While these reports are difficult to read, the evidence seems clear that we are still in the window of opportunity to change the outcome. As identified in this report - this will require commitments on the business, government, community and individual level. Let's engage TOGETHER in these solutions. My work is focused on how we can change our kitchens into climate change mitigation maker spaces. I'd love your input to help make this content more enjoyable, delicious and impactful. You can find links to my social media streams on my website: www.knowwattscooking.com. I'm always happy to receive comments. We're all in this together - don't be afraid to bring up these topics to those close to you - family, friends, coworkers. This helps with literacy and breaking down our polarity. Peace!
I am very angry. It's been 30 years since we're getting those reports and I don't feel like something was done. All the research, all the technology we have is good, but politicians and CEOs are so greedy and afraid to lose money and power, that nothing happens on political and economy level, it's only activists and we can not that much. They are stealing my son's life.
I took their warming stripes diagram and used it to illustrate the urgency of the problem with some of our less-focused contacts.
We're working on large scale climate solutions, which is grueling, especially when the funding money ran out some time ago...
We also wrote a collection of positive-outcome climate fiction short stories to encourage more people to dedicate their whole careers to fixing the climate crisis. More hands to the pumps.
And to show a vision of a future we would actually like to see. One where the climate crisis has been fixed by massive scale, sustained effort.
Some of the stories have been converted to scripts and we are pitching them to TV and film producers to reach the larger audience, outside this climate echo-chamber.
I'm glad to come to spaces like this where people know what the IPCC report actually is. And care. And do small (and big) things to make change. We can't do this without community...
The report is too optimistic. Nobody knows for sure., but there is a significant probability (I don't know the number, perhaps 10%) that our habitat will be so bad in a decade or two that our species will become extinct. I keep fighting to stop that happening.
You know that dreaded feeling when you failed to prepare for a chapter exam and you're anguishing over how badly you bombed? All too familiar. So, I braced myself for it. Given recent events (in America, notably) leading up to this report, I knew it wasn't going to be good reading the summaries but I was strangely uplifted by the outlined solution plan. All or nothing. Do-or-die "fight plan". The corrections were clear over our missed questions and there's a chance for redemption heading into Finals Week. A strange clarity rose up from my anger and my first step towards that redemption was leaving Chase behind for good. Why the hell should I stay with a bank that actively invests against mine and our future rather than towards it? I'll gladly pull the rug out from under them.
The hill across from my street has become a lush green meadow with golden poppies and I find myself staring at it and I feel at peace when I do. Just the other day, I was standing in line at a job fair at Balboa Park, I was watching the scenery next to me.
For processing climate emotions I regularly participate in two different monthly climate cafes and offer a short embodied practice at one of them. I’m currently doing the Active Hope Training 7 week program online. I’m also in training to co-facilitate the Living With the Climate Crisis program from Carbon Conversations. I continue with activism by signing petitions, attending rallies, volunteering for progressive candidates during elections, etc and I have my own creative climate communications project at Embodied Climate Justice Fitness. Reconciliation is an important part of my work.
I haven't had the guts to read it yet but I will. I just need my time to feel prepared, even we never feel fully prepared for this kind of news. It's a lot to process everyday and I need to take it easy following my own rhythm and my mental health needs.
I feel scared, for my future, for my young son's future, for all flora, fauna and humanity.
I don't know what a world that afforded us time to sit with these feelings looks like as I've never had that experience, I'm alone with my feelings in my day to day life with nobody to turn to. Anyone I try to speak to either says nothing or tells me to stop worrying about what I can't control.
I also don't know how to process these feelings. I cry every single day, have regular panic attacks and apologise silently to my son as he sleeps for bringing him into this world. When I sleep I have nightmares about natural disasters, starvation and worldwide societal and ecological collapse. There is no respite.
I agree with commenter Nivi Achenta, though I don't quite "ignore" the new reports. It's necessary to update the science every so often, but the big picture of what the science has to say is substantively the same as the big picture of what it said 10, 20, 30 years ago. Over the years, the picture has gotten more precies, less fuzzy, sure. But the content is similar, and I suspect that there is an effect of numbing through repetition and increased stridency in the warnings coming from Gutierrez and others. And while it may be true that "1.5 is still within reach," it is also the case that some of the measures that would have to be taken to achieve 1.5 degrees depend on technologies such as BECCS that threaten to impose a kind of green colonialism on folks in developing countries.
The commenters below are engaged in some intriguing and inspiring projects that depend on individual actions and the creation of community. And this, in the end, is where I believe the climate crisis can be mitigated without waiting for government interventions that are likely always to be imperfect. Which is why I find it so strange that there is a strong de-emphasis of the potential for individual action by some leading environmental groups and commentators. Sure, we don't want to let Exxon or the government off of the hook, but it's not either big companies/ big policies OR individual micro-actions, it's both together.
How did the report make me feel? To be honest: disgusted. We KNOW from recent extreme weather events that the current temperature anomaly of 1.2 degrees is ecocidal. What is therefore needed is rapid GLOBAL COOLING. Aiming to stay below 1.5 implies a continuation of GLOBAL WARMING, which will likely kill millions of people and billions of other organisms. The report never even mentions SRM (solar geoengineering), which at this late stage is the only way to salvage the biosphere and our civilization.
I am baffled at the media silence on this latest IPCC report. The public, along with climate protesters, scientists, activists must be able to apply enough pressure for global change and speak truth to fossil fuel power/feeble and self-serving governments. Why can't we? At present, I'm feeling a huge amount of rage, but tenacious rage. I'm not letting go of this one....
This week, to honor the Equinox, my friends gathered in my backyard and lit a fire. Everyone brought something to share; music, stories, history, baked goods, honey, and we talked about our history. That might not sound like an answer to the prompting questions, but it is.
1. I feel grateful the report calls out fossil fuels but also irked that we live in a time where we need so much data and evidence to prove something we are experiencing first hand with the wonky weather patterns and ever increasing extreme weather events.
2. Having communities of practice and space (virtual or in person) to share our reactions and feel heard and supported before working together on solutions at the local level and up.
3. See #2. Also, more time in nature (what if organizations started a day a month for employees to spend time in nature? I bet it would boost well-being and productivity, and could contribute to greater embodied knowing that we are part of nature so what happens to the planet happens to us), and institutions all around who acknowledge that they have a role to play and work proactively towards climate change mitigation and adaptation.
1a. I'm quite honestly ignoring the IPCC report because I want to focus on what I can do *locally* in my community and through my business. In the Climate Solutions Cohort we run (https://www.soapboxproject.org/community/join), we focus on actions that are meaningful to us, our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods etc. to build self-efficacy.
1b. I want to un-ostrich myself to see what I can do about the implications of banking. A company I'm on the board for uses Chase, and I want to start a conversation on whether this is aligned and what we can do.
2. I'd be at the park right now laying in the sunshine and not at my computer!
3. something like ^
Personally as a person barely pushing on 20 years old, this new ipcc report frankly makes me feel pretty hopeless and like there's no point going on anymore. Given how entrenched our world is in our capitalist, greed driven system, I don't see us globally making the necessary changes quick enough to keep our world from going over the edge. When we most need to be cooperating on a global scale, we're instead fighting proxy wars, being slung misinformation, having our rights stripped, and becoming more and more polarized. I really want to believe there's something we can actually do, but it truly seems as if no one cares until it's too late. Sorry for being pessimistic, it's just really how I feel about this all currently.
I feel confused and anxious. I have so many questions about the climate crisis and I really want to understand it better, but I've struggled to make sense of it all. It doesn't help that everyone on social media seems to come out of the woodwork with their own foregone conclusions. Then again, Gen Dread helped me understand that both my reaction and those of others come from the impulse to eliminate uncertainty. I'm trying not to feed my compulsion to see what everyone has to say and try to figure out if they are right, as I know it's a fruitless task. I'm also bracing myself for every news headline and whether they manage to maintain the nuances of the report. (Side note: anyone else think it's funny how there seem to only be a few kinds of images that get used in news reports, namely a picture of a smokestack, the Earth on fire, or a natural disaster?) I feel an intense sense of cognitive dissonance. It's like, we keep getting told we need to stop emitting carbon, but people respond by saying, "Well it's not practical or realistic to do X, Y, or Z."
I wish everyone wasn't so uncomfortable talking about it in their daily lives. If there ever was a topic people avoided like the plague, it's this one. I see a lot of people trying to mask their fears with humor. I've also seen those who share their fear get invalidated and dismissed. I just want a way to honestly share feelings without devolving into cynicism or apathy. I think it would be ideal if everyone could set aside time to have conversations at work, school, or home about what they are thinking and doing, and what else they might do going forward.
Angry. We've know for so so long now. I just want to start seeing some actual physical changes... not meetings, not conferences, not discussion. I want to see more people with the power to make changes - speaking out. I want to see more MSM coverage , and not framed as a "left' issue. I want to see Biden rescind his pledge to open Willow. I want to see those who consume the most start to lead and demand change on this instead of protecting their "lifestyle" and "interests." I would like there to be places to go to be with people on IPCC days. Or other days too. To have coffee or a drink and discuss where and how to place these feelings.
"What new rituals, customs, or institutional norms would help you process your feelings and figure out how you want to act at this time?"
Honestly, I think we need some kind of spiritual community that just exists to provide communal and relational and emotional support for all of us who deeply feel the pain of the changing climate. Like a climate church or climate support group or something, with regular meetings and community support and action.
Angry, frustrated... and anxious for my kids and the future. It is inconceivable to me how people and corporations can prioritize themselves, in the present, over the future for everyone. And with no tangible consequences to those actions.
I need to find more hope and spend time with like-minded people.
Here is an op-ed I wrote after the 2021 IPPC report; https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/12/put-the-power-to-solve-the-climate-crisis-in-the-peoples-hands/
“Mom – I’m really scared. Is this the apocalypse?”
I woke up blurry-eyed in the middle of the night to a text message from Emet, one of my children. Emet had just read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent forecast. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to respond to my kid. I couldn’t make Emet feel better. Because I was scared, too.
All my life, I’ve prided myself on being a good mother. Emet and Zoie are adults now, and they’re embarking on their own futures. But as their mom, I worry about what kind of future they’ll have. "
I really appreciate the framing of this article. Having the space (or not) to sit with this is *everything*. Not having the space... or knowing how to create it... or even why that is necessary... are all part of the problem. It’s easy for business-as-usual when we don’t have space to process such big, deep, intense emotions. The vast majority don’t have the capacity for the immense fear, grief, guilt, etc. It’s simply too much. And not due to any fault of their own. Our Western way of living has thrown out this tool belt.
I want to connect with nature. I want to enjoy the beauty that still exists all around us. Not to escape - but to experience what is truly real.
I want to share that with my wife and my baby girl. I want to share that with everyone. I want people to feel that what we have is precious and that relating to it is critical - not only for our own well-being but for the well-being of the entire ecosystem, locally and globally.
I want to continue to connect with people who want to live differently and be part of a better, more just future.
Finally, I’m intrigued about creating a “spiritual community” (but like, not culty lol) in this likeness - one where we can feel more connected with ourselves, each other, and the natural world. If you’re interested / have suggestions / what you’re looking for in a community, I’d love to hear from you! I myself crave this and I believe a true sense of belonging is what many of us deeply need.
Hi there, I too find time in nature is a good way to process feelings and sometimes even find some inspiration - and has all kinds of other health benefits! https://www.parkprescriptions.ca/ .
I also agree with other posters that this is a crisis beyond just climate, a crisis of ethos and spirit (spiritual crisis) which will require a change in mindset and worldview, in which we need to value all life and all the living and non-living beings.
Envisioning that kind of future gives me hope for something better for my kids (teenagers) and gives me a sense of peace for what might lie beyond all the difficult times ahead. It inspires me to work towards better "spiritual" health, beyond just the climate crisis. And I'm driven by the responsibility to youth - to those of you who are younger: please know there are many of us working hard for your future!
This week’s IPCC report makes me want to weep. If we lived in a world that afforded us the time and space to sit with the difficult feelings that arise from this IPCC report, if other similar climate bombshells were given the regularity and priority they so deserve in the news, we would be acting, collectively, to solve the crisis from the top down, middle out, and bottom up. The covid pandemic demonstrated how we CAN and DO change our behaviours DRASTICALLY for the common good. Shared beliefs lead to shared cultural changes in behaviour. The climate and ecological emergency underpins everything. While world leaders continually strive for perpetual growth on a finite planet, while GDP and profit rule decision making, while we all carry on with business as usual, nothing changes.
What new rituals, customs, or institutional norms would help? As a teacher, I’ll focus on schools - we need the UK climate schools strategy to become policy; we need ofsted to make addressing and acting on the climate crisis a priority, with a level of accountability; we need all subjects promoting nature connectedness, teaching sustainability, and raising awareness of the climate and ecological emergency; we need to adapt school buildings and green up the grounds; we need space in the school day for teacher training and pupil learning and reflection; we desperately need honest conversations with everyone, everywhere, all at once.
Personally I think that the words 1.5 degrees should be clarified. I know many people who think 1.5degrees is fine. If your countries average summer temperatures is say 22 degrees they think that 23.5 degrees is fine. No problem. What people need to know is that 1.5degrees means the end of the world as we know it. No air conditioning will help.
To get out of an unsafe psychoterratic space we need a shared meme such as the Symbiocene. Otherwise we have no common vision of a future worth having. See: https://glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/2023/03/22/unsafe-spaces/
This week's report makes me want to cry--for all the current and future climate refugees, for those are or will be suffering in place, for my grandchildren and everyone else's progeny and the challenging lives they will lead. The report also makes me feel vindicated. As a sustainability coordinator, I am leading/pushing/cajoling my organization toward its first public commitment to improve sustainability. I wonder if the decision-makers have seen this report and how they think about it in relation to our organization. It wish we could just have a human-to-human conversation about these things outside of the formal presentation/decision process.
I can see the change in attitudes altering through my lifetime and bending especially sharply in the last few years. That gives me hope. I think the IPCC report's plain language on fossil fuels is the kind of thing that helps pressure governments (and really, all our bikesharing vegan dogoodery is nothing compared to what governments can do) to account in policy decisions not just for next year's GDP/inflation/immigration goals, but for life expectancy and overall standard of living.
If we took these things as seriously and deeply as they deserve, we'd look at big things like planned extraction projects and actually cost out what it would look like if we didn't proceed. What's the geopolitical cost? Can we live with that? How do the other major policy agenda items relate to this? What's the least carbon-intensive way to solve the housing crisis? (Hint: it's neither building highway-dependent SFHs nor endlessly hand-wringing about "neighbourhood character.") What would be the impacts on the healthcare system? Etc. It's the climate, FFS: it's literally everything.
While these reports are difficult to read, the evidence seems clear that we are still in the window of opportunity to change the outcome. As identified in this report - this will require commitments on the business, government, community and individual level. Let's engage TOGETHER in these solutions. My work is focused on how we can change our kitchens into climate change mitigation maker spaces. I'd love your input to help make this content more enjoyable, delicious and impactful. You can find links to my social media streams on my website: www.knowwattscooking.com. I'm always happy to receive comments. We're all in this together - don't be afraid to bring up these topics to those close to you - family, friends, coworkers. This helps with literacy and breaking down our polarity. Peace!
I am very angry. It's been 30 years since we're getting those reports and I don't feel like something was done. All the research, all the technology we have is good, but politicians and CEOs are so greedy and afraid to lose money and power, that nothing happens on political and economy level, it's only activists and we can not that much. They are stealing my son's life.
How did the IPCC report make me feel?
I took their warming stripes diagram and used it to illustrate the urgency of the problem with some of our less-focused contacts.
We're working on large scale climate solutions, which is grueling, especially when the funding money ran out some time ago...
We also wrote a collection of positive-outcome climate fiction short stories to encourage more people to dedicate their whole careers to fixing the climate crisis. More hands to the pumps.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-More-Fairy-Tales-Stories/dp/1739980328/
And to show a vision of a future we would actually like to see. One where the climate crisis has been fixed by massive scale, sustained effort.
Some of the stories have been converted to scripts and we are pitching them to TV and film producers to reach the larger audience, outside this climate echo-chamber.
I'm glad to come to spaces like this where people know what the IPCC report actually is. And care. And do small (and big) things to make change. We can't do this without community...
The report is too optimistic. Nobody knows for sure., but there is a significant probability (I don't know the number, perhaps 10%) that our habitat will be so bad in a decade or two that our species will become extinct. I keep fighting to stop that happening.
You know that dreaded feeling when you failed to prepare for a chapter exam and you're anguishing over how badly you bombed? All too familiar. So, I braced myself for it. Given recent events (in America, notably) leading up to this report, I knew it wasn't going to be good reading the summaries but I was strangely uplifted by the outlined solution plan. All or nothing. Do-or-die "fight plan". The corrections were clear over our missed questions and there's a chance for redemption heading into Finals Week. A strange clarity rose up from my anger and my first step towards that redemption was leaving Chase behind for good. Why the hell should I stay with a bank that actively invests against mine and our future rather than towards it? I'll gladly pull the rug out from under them.
The hill across from my street has become a lush green meadow with golden poppies and I find myself staring at it and I feel at peace when I do. Just the other day, I was standing in line at a job fair at Balboa Park, I was watching the scenery next to me.
For processing climate emotions I regularly participate in two different monthly climate cafes and offer a short embodied practice at one of them. I’m currently doing the Active Hope Training 7 week program online. I’m also in training to co-facilitate the Living With the Climate Crisis program from Carbon Conversations. I continue with activism by signing petitions, attending rallies, volunteering for progressive candidates during elections, etc and I have my own creative climate communications project at Embodied Climate Justice Fitness. Reconciliation is an important part of my work.
I haven't had the guts to read it yet but I will. I just need my time to feel prepared, even we never feel fully prepared for this kind of news. It's a lot to process everyday and I need to take it easy following my own rhythm and my mental health needs.
I feel scared, for my future, for my young son's future, for all flora, fauna and humanity.
I don't know what a world that afforded us time to sit with these feelings looks like as I've never had that experience, I'm alone with my feelings in my day to day life with nobody to turn to. Anyone I try to speak to either says nothing or tells me to stop worrying about what I can't control.
I also don't know how to process these feelings. I cry every single day, have regular panic attacks and apologise silently to my son as he sleeps for bringing him into this world. When I sleep I have nightmares about natural disasters, starvation and worldwide societal and ecological collapse. There is no respite.
I agree with commenter Nivi Achenta, though I don't quite "ignore" the new reports. It's necessary to update the science every so often, but the big picture of what the science has to say is substantively the same as the big picture of what it said 10, 20, 30 years ago. Over the years, the picture has gotten more precies, less fuzzy, sure. But the content is similar, and I suspect that there is an effect of numbing through repetition and increased stridency in the warnings coming from Gutierrez and others. And while it may be true that "1.5 is still within reach," it is also the case that some of the measures that would have to be taken to achieve 1.5 degrees depend on technologies such as BECCS that threaten to impose a kind of green colonialism on folks in developing countries.
The commenters below are engaged in some intriguing and inspiring projects that depend on individual actions and the creation of community. And this, in the end, is where I believe the climate crisis can be mitigated without waiting for government interventions that are likely always to be imperfect. Which is why I find it so strange that there is a strong de-emphasis of the potential for individual action by some leading environmental groups and commentators. Sure, we don't want to let Exxon or the government off of the hook, but it's not either big companies/ big policies OR individual micro-actions, it's both together.
How did the report make me feel? To be honest: disgusted. We KNOW from recent extreme weather events that the current temperature anomaly of 1.2 degrees is ecocidal. What is therefore needed is rapid GLOBAL COOLING. Aiming to stay below 1.5 implies a continuation of GLOBAL WARMING, which will likely kill millions of people and billions of other organisms. The report never even mentions SRM (solar geoengineering), which at this late stage is the only way to salvage the biosphere and our civilization.
For a more objective and humane analysis, see ecologicalsurvival.org.
I am baffled at the media silence on this latest IPCC report. The public, along with climate protesters, scientists, activists must be able to apply enough pressure for global change and speak truth to fossil fuel power/feeble and self-serving governments. Why can't we? At present, I'm feeling a huge amount of rage, but tenacious rage. I'm not letting go of this one....
This week, to honor the Equinox, my friends gathered in my backyard and lit a fire. Everyone brought something to share; music, stories, history, baked goods, honey, and we talked about our history. That might not sound like an answer to the prompting questions, but it is.
Every day I grow more convinced that ec0-m1l1tar1sm is the solution. Children of Kali when?
1. I feel grateful the report calls out fossil fuels but also irked that we live in a time where we need so much data and evidence to prove something we are experiencing first hand with the wonky weather patterns and ever increasing extreme weather events.
2. Having communities of practice and space (virtual or in person) to share our reactions and feel heard and supported before working together on solutions at the local level and up.
3. See #2. Also, more time in nature (what if organizations started a day a month for employees to spend time in nature? I bet it would boost well-being and productivity, and could contribute to greater embodied knowing that we are part of nature so what happens to the planet happens to us), and institutions all around who acknowledge that they have a role to play and work proactively towards climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Hey Britt, I get back to “Paid” soon as I raise some funds. Just posted my SubStack page this morning, hope you enjoy!
https://seaandthemint.substack.com
-Sea