30 Comments
Jul 27, 2023Liked by Gen Dread

This is my mantra:

I am one person

I did not cause this mess alone

I cannot fix this mess alone

I have to live in a society that doesn't support good choices, so I must make compromises

If my mental health fails, I will not be able to contribute or fight

I am not a bad person if I have limitations

I can't always do more so that others can do nothing

I am not perfect

I am not pure

I am not tireless

I am only human and doing what I can

... and then I get back to work

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did you write that? It's so good!

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Yes. It is a litany that I have developed over time in my head. I think that's the first time that I have written it down, though. It could probably be edited better for sharing.

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I'd might like print it and put it on the wall in my office. Please let me know if there's a name I should credit other than MamaSelkie.

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I'm cool with that. I prefer to lurk behind my pseud as climate epidemiologists wear a target on each side. Edit and rearrange as you wish!

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This. This. This. Thank you.

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We need more brave folks to speak up and have voices heard. This is not going away we have to face the difficult conversations. I use photography to open up conversations in groups. It's a way to process how we're experiencing the climate crisis.

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I feel exactly the same way. Thank you for your words.

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You’ve put into words precisely how I feel. Keep on fighting the good fight.

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Thank you for expressing what has been on my mind as of late. I feel so similar. There are so few willing or able to have this conversation. I feel grateful that you and some are having it here. Thank you with all my heart. I am a therapist and support others who express similar feelings to what you described. Your expressing and publishing this will make ripples that will help others feel held and connected in this. Thank you.

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A work you might be able to use with your patients: https://twitter.com/apapa0001

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Thank you Joe. I hear the love in what you're saying and I echo it a million times over. To be tender and informed and passionate is hard. Thank you for your bravery.

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I’m feeling the same entanglement of emotions and find myself slipping in despair. My mind is divided up on several battlefronts: the climate crisis, the writers/actors’ strike, the mass layoffs in the animation industry, and the threat of AI-plagiarism-generators seeking to replace me. It’s one onslaught after the other. Sometimes, I wake up and wonder “Do I even have a future left?” But I’m just too damn stubborn to give in no matter how deep my despair takes me.

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Thanks, Joe. I don't know what to say ... I tried ... but thank you.

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In addition to my comment below, I have been posting daily on social media to all of the news media organizations that they need to start calling out the oil and gas industry as the number one factor behind global warming and the destruction of our planet through this climate crisis. Guy Walton, a former meteorologist, is boldly naming heatwaves and other horrific climate disasters after oil companies – he just named the “Chevron” heatwave. Pound on the news media outlets to start inserting into their heatwave and other climate change disasters coverage “the burning of fossil fuels by the oil and gas industry, who continue to gouge worldwide citizens with inflated prices while they line their filthy pockets with greed.”

These same oil and gas CEOs are literally spending millions if not billions in blatant disinformation campaigns and promoting climate change denialism. This is not “climate change hysteria” as some call it. What we are witnessing happening to our world is real and is directly affecting every living species on Earth. I’m glad people are joining together on this site.

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Thank you for this very honest, informed, heartfelt message which needs to be shared with everyone. It is so discouraging to be amongst so many people "not looking up". Please keep writing. I have shared all I can on social media. Bless you and your family. I agree with all the replies which I read below.

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The tweet really hits home. I also find community in knowing that my climate grief and anxiety isn't just all in my head.

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Thank you Joe for your words, agree 1000000%

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Dear Joe,

You are not alone. There are thousands of us who feel as you do. You are not alone. We send you and each other strength and compassion to do this work. You are not alone. You are enfolded in love. You are not alone.

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Thank you.

I have felt much the same these last 19 years since I became aware and began to intensively study our Earth System and devise solutions and construct useful apparatus while becoming a homeless pariah for engaging with hard facts almost everyone around me ignores.

I have summarised my system outline in my "image" I am still working on the problems - trying to understand the psychological barriers and mental limits of the bulk of normal people.

I am 58 now and was diagnosed with "ASD" two years ago.

I sleep in a van next to a shipping container I have converted to an office and storeroom for my project.

I feel guilty for the destructive actions I was encouraged to engage in, but am attempting to atone for that.

I hold despair at bay with fury, not always successfully.

I must contend with survival chores among the less aware soon then return to my reclusive camp with 300 irregular avian visitors and my possum friends and write.

After checking if any politicians responded to my last email.

Thank you♥️🌏👊💙

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I am new to this website but I have followed Britt Wray for several years. I am a mother/grandmother/human being in her mid-60s who cares so very deeply for our beautiful planet and all life upon it. Sometimes I am in full despair, full of grief, other times I read the good news and feel hope. But my generation, the baby boomers, were the ones who were the “revolutionaries” in the 60s, and now we seem to sit like couch potatoes flipping through Netflix channels mindlessly wondering what to watch next.

Folks, we have to rise up as a global community. We have to rise up strong and be fierce, demanding that our global elected leaders take immediate bold actions to phase out fossil fuel emissions and move toward the cleaner alternatives that are already available.

President Biden, whom I write daily to express my anger at his climate action Band-Aids and inaction, is still beholden to oil and gas CEOs and their blatant destruction of our planet through the burning of fossil fuels.

How do we come together and rise up in a revolution? That is my question. I would love some feedback from others of all ages. I have five grandchildren and another on the way; my oldest grandchildren have been worried about climate change for years.

Thank you for this incredible post from this ER physician. We must rise up together and we must act now!

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As someone who is trying to publish an oped, I'm hoping my story is different in getting published...and I'm very interested in hearing more from this doctor next week!

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