69. Climate Change Grief Pt. II - Visions, Wildfires, and the Children of Compost

Good Life Revival: Permaculture, Rewilding, Homesteading

Whether the status quo is prepared to admit it or not, climate change is not some mysterious future event looming on the horizon — it is already happening, here, now.

So: how will you choose to respond?

In this episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I revisit last week’s topic of climate change grief, and whether we ought to let go of the hope of salvation in favor of taking direct action to brace ourselves for what we know we can reasonably expect from a severely disrupted global climate.

One crucial part of the process of preparing ourselves, I believe, is to reckon with our emotional reactions to what is unfolding in front of us. To deny the pain that we all feel when we observe the open wounds on the land that we walk upon is to numb ourselves to reality — to continue, in vain, to build a wall between ourselves and the natural world which sustains us.

Acknowledging and confronting the seemingly insurmountable pain of a dying planet should only imbue our work with that much more urgency.

Drawing from the writings of Steven Martyn, Kat Anderson, Trebbe Johnson and Donna Haraway, I make the case here that what we need now more than ever are visionary new myths to guide us towards novel ways and means of co-creation with the land.

We do ourselves no favors by merely hoping for a better world, or praying that our leaders will miraculously change course — recognizing that top-down solutions have failed to materialize, the time has come for us to begin self-organizing in the interests of preserving and regenerating whatever is within our reach.

All the while, we must not be afraid to stare down the very real existential fear that looms in the background. You are justified in your fear, but it is no excuse for inaction. You don’t get to choose what problems you face in life, but you can always decide how to feel about them. I hope you’ll join me in this difficult but necessary work.

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Bibliography:

Anderson, M. Kat. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources

Haraway, Donna J. Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene

Johnson, Trebbe. Radical Joy For Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places

Martyn, Steven Elliot. Sacred Gardening: Seeds for the Reemergence of Co-Creative Agriculture

All music was created by Sam Sycamore, and can be downloaded by subscribers at any level over on Patreon. If you’d prefer to offer a one-time financial contribution, you can do so through PayPal. This show is made possible by listeners like you.