The Calling of Climate Change

When I encounter a new situation, experience or circumstance I always ask myself, what is the worst that can happen here. If I’m thinking of taking an action that I hope is a good one, I always ask how could it all backfire on me. While thinking positively that my idea will work out, I always think of all the scenarios where it won’t

The Peril of the Climate Crisis

That is how I became concerned about Climate Change. I looked out at the world and wondered what is the worst thing that could happen and the answer was very clear. Life as we know it could easily be extinguished through Climate Change.

The evidence for this outcome is getting stronger by the year and the predictions more dire. It was painful for me to deal with. It still is.

What to do? Panic?

The problem was so overwhelming and huge and I was so small and insignificant that it seemed there was nothing I could do to stop it. As such my actions revolved around freaking out among my friends about where everything was going.

I then read five or six years ago that the worst way to convince people to do something was to scare the hell out of them. That led more to paralysis than action. People just turned me off.

You Can’t Turn Away

But I felt it was my duty to continue to follow the increasingly depressing prognostications about Climate Change and to witness them regularly in the increasing number and intensity of the floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, extinctions, droughts, heat and so on.

Here it was happening right before our eyes and still people were living in denial. In addition, we had elected a president and he put together a cabinet that not only didn’t want to do anything about Climate Change, but were undoing the few things that had already been done.

It’s Ok to Panic

It was pretty depressing. Then I read David Wallace Wells’ new book, The Uninhabitable Earth and in it he said it was now okay to panic. The situation had become serious enough that if we didn’t make real changes real fast, we were doomed.

As I have been taking all this in I have grown from it. I have learned to deal better with the coming catastrophes. In fact, now I really wonder if we will make it at all. I realize on my own I can’t save the planet. No one really can.

A Magic Moment?

If we do manage to save planet from the worst ravages of Climate Change, it will be a collective response. It will be one of those movements that just seems to magically and spontaneously occur from time to time that completely changes everything.

One thing that has helped me handle all the stress that comes from focusing on Climate Change and the end of civilization is seeing things from a new worldview. I’ve realized that all these problems we have of which Climate Change is the major one, are caused by an antiquated worldview.

We Need a New World View, A New Mythology

If that is the case then what we need is a new worldview, what I call in a forthcoming book, a New Mythology. From this new perspective we will see Climate Change from a completely different perspective.

Climate Change is Here to Wake Us Up

We will see that Climate Change is the universe’s way of waking us up. It is the universe’s telling us that we either have to evolve or die. It is the universe playing the natural selection game.

A New Creation Story

Like any new mythology I start out with a new creation story that goes from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present. I trace this story as a series of what I call miracles. There are many points along the way that this story could have ended but each time the universe pulled some miracle out of its hat, perhaps a new creation, that kept the story going forward.

Just when it would look like this journey was surely going to end, it didn’t. The universe in its infinite wisdom came up with a solution to keep things evolving.

Miracles?

I bring these miracles up because when we look at them all together it does appear there is some kind of intelligence embedded in the creation process itself. In short at the core of this evolutionary journey is wisdom.

It is my contention that in order to solve and escape this present crisis, we have to quiet down our thoughts and go deep inside ourselves to tap into that universal wisdom which is at the core of everything.

Becoming a New Person for a New Planet

In order to do that, we have to transform ourselves and how we relate to others and the planet. We have to become new people. We have to get in touch with this universal wisdom to discover who we are and what our purpose is. When enough of us do that, then we can transform the planet and head off the worst effects of Climate Change.

This is What This Blog is All About

This is what this blog will be all about. Looking at the world, Climate Change and ourselves from this new perspective. I hope you will tune in and contribute to the discussion. By all means disagree and/or challenge anything I say. I just ask that it all be done in a respectful manner.

Disagreement is great if it is done with respect. In the end I’m hoping to not only educate people to this new worldview, but also to be educated by the intelligent feedback that I get from you.

As the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw said: “Let’s dream things that never were and say why not?