Future Hope column, August 29, 2009

More than once over the last several years I have talked with people who understand the deep hole humankind has dug for itself because of our reliance on fossil fuels and the dominant system’s environmentally destructive model of “development.” They have difficulty seeing a way that we will ever get out of this hole. Intuitively, they see little hope that we can avoid climate catastrophe. They ask me why I’m doing what I’m doing given that likelihood.

What I say to them is, OK, let’s assume the worst. Let’s accept that it is unlikely that we will be able to overcome in enough time the power of the fossil fuel interests and those allied with them and enact a clean energy revolution in enough time. Let’s accept that throughout this century billions of people will die and the world’s population is reduced to several hundred million people, the prediction of James Lovelock. What then? What does that mean for those of us alive today who want to do the right thing with our lives?

First of all, what we do today can increase the odds that those who come after us will be both greater in numbers and in a better situation than would be the case if we just give up or half-step it. The stronger, the bolder and the qualitatively better a climate/progressive movement we build, the sooner we can expect the U.S. government and other governments to get serious about the changes urgently needed, and the greater the chances that future generations will be able to rebuild human society on a firmer and sounder foundation.

Secondly, perhaps we will find an inner peace that will give us the strength we need if we accept, if we just accept, that just as each of as individuals is going to someday die, life on earth as we have known it