I've spent the better part of my adult life reading and analyzing socioeconomic and scientific data on human driven climate change and writing about its impacts. For years, I felt as though I was screaming in a room at the top of my lungs and no one was listening, much in the same way that many health professionals have warned about the consequences of a global pandemic. I remember sharing once in an AA meeting that the things I worried about were things like the sixth extinction as a result of human driven climate change and a global society that did not appear to give two fucks about it or anyone but themselves. I am a global thinker who contemplates macro problems and attempts to identify micro, individual level solutions to them. Kind of like what's happening right now. The best way to resolve a pandemic is to stop the behavior that is spreading it i.e. contact with other humans.
Today, I begin a 14-day quarantine period having just returned to the US from a Schengen country. Instead of documenting the boredom, drudgery, anxiety and stir-craziness of being home with loved ones, I will contemplate the silver lining the pandemic is having on Mother Nature and what could be gained from acting globally to live more harmoniously and sustainably with our environment. This pandemic is our opportunity to demonstrate that we have the power to avoid the climatological tipping point.
Mother Nature is whispering to us. Listen. Reconnect with Her. Watch the sun rise. Listen to the river move and birds sing. Witness the daily bursts of blossoms happening all around you. Feel the sun against your skin and take a moment to smell a pollution-free spring. Take a walk, it's glorious outside. Today, you have no excuse. Go outside. Be one with Nature. Have compassion for Her. Honor Her right to breathe. Respect Her for all that She is and all that She gives to us. LIFE.
