In a House on Fire

Occasionally, I've had the thought that if I had children, I would never stop crying. In a wide-ranging essay, Catherine Ingram encapsulates much of what I've recently been thinking and reading about.

She starts by summarizing the data.

As I became aware of these facts and many hundreds like them, I also marveled at how oblivious most people are to the coming catastrophes.

Human evolution was geared toward short term threats. Exponential growth confuses us and we'd much rather seek out comforting distractions.

[A]s exponential warming triggers other imbalances that also become exponential, we perceive them only as linear problems and assume we will have time to address them. We carry on with business-as-usual and return to "the matrix," the illusion that things are fairly normal, where our ordinary problems, comforts and entertainments await our attention.

And you will find yourself among the throngs of humanity who are easily distracted and amused, playing with their toys as the house burns, "tranquilized by the trivial," as Kierkegaard said, and speaking of the future as though it was going to go on as it has.

Ingram is most concerned about "the breakdown of civilized society". Hundreds of millions of people face increasingly desperate situations.

Seeing disintegrations occur in the developed countries gives a glimpse as to what societal and economic breakdown will look like when there are widespread food shortages everywhere and when the infrastructures, including the electric grids, become spotty, too costly to maintain, or are no longer working.

We overlook the impact that lost biodiversity will have. We think our technological prowess, which largely got us into this predicament, can still save us. And yet it's possible that "the disparity between wisdom and intelligence" is a common feature of life universally.

Take capitalism for instance. It is unsustainable at its core as it relies on continued economic expansion and growth in a system of finite resources. In the process, it also speeds up the complete elimination of the very resources on which it relies. But the problem is that the human creature will postpone challenging that system as long as the goods keep flowing, no matter the future costs. Capitalism is a perfect representation of the human need and greed for more, future be damned. Very few cultures in modern civilization have managed to resist it. There is now a lot of false hope around "Green Capitalism" and the Green New Deal in the USA. Given that capitalism, of any color, inevitably relies on extraction of resources in the production or transport of goods, feeling encouraged about Green Capitalism is another form of deluded bargaining in the Kubler-Ross stages of grief.

Our awareness of the prospect of extinction will re-order our thoughts.

You may marvel at how many personal conversations with people you know or news items from around the world assume that human life carries on indefinitely. You may find it difficult to hold interest in these conversations and stories, as though you chanced upon a madman on a street corner earnestly proclaiming his grand plans for the future when it is clear he is hallucinating.

We will need to let go of blame (where did it go wrong?) and accept grief.

[W]itnessing the death of all of life, even though there may be acceptance of the fact of it and even though one may no longer blame anyone or anything, comes with a different kind of grief. It is depressing on a scale that is unique to our time.

No matter how clear and rational our understanding of the situation, many of my extinction-aware friends admit that the magnitude of the loss we are undergoing is unacceptable to the innermost psyche. It might be akin to a parent losing a young child. Even when there was no one to blame and no story of "if only," the sorrow can rarely be fully overcome. Only this time, it is all the little children. All the animals. All the plants. All the ice.

You may begin to experience anticipatory grief for everyone—the animals, the young, the poor, the newly poor, the middle class, the rich, and, most of all, your own loved ones. Few people are even minimally prepared, emotionally or physically, for what is coming, perhaps especially those who are most privileged.

And while it is important to act on what we know, it needs to be tempered with a realistic view.

[C]linging to hope when there is no longer anything to be done, when the course cannot be changed, makes hope itself a burden. One is forced into internal pretense, deeper denial. For people who have limited capacity for denial, and I suspect that if you have read this far you are one of those, maintaining hope becomes impossible. It is a surprising relief to let go of it.

You may acclimate to living with grief without the assumption that it should or will dissipate. Despite this or because of it, you may notice a growing tendency to appreciate simple moments of connection and many small joys. And you may feel more awake than you have for a long time.

Ingram does end with some thoughts on choices we still have and where to turn our attention.

Despite our having caused so much destruction, it is important to also consider the wide spectrum of possibilities that make up a human life. Yes, on one end of that spectrum is greed, cruelty, and ignorance; on the other end is kindness, compassion, and wisdom. 

You likely know well the spectrum of human consciousness within yourself. Perhaps you have had many moments when greed or hatred overtook your mind. But it is likely you have also had many moments when you knew that love was all that ever really mattered. And in your final breaths it is likely to be all that is left of you, a cosmic story whispered only once.