Why We Won’t Deal Seriously with Climate Change

Lately I have been writing a lot of articles on death. I was inspired by reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead and taking a course on it by Andrew Holocek. He recommended the book, Mind Beyond Death by Dzogchen Ponlop which I bought and have begun reading and writing about.

But I want to step back a bit and once again delve into my growing fascination with death, and how it ties into climate change.

Death has been a great motivator for me. When I read The Tibetan Book of the Dead (TBD), it really struck home that either we can deal with our stuff now or we will deal with it later. TBD made the case that it is much easier to deal with death now, while we are alive than when we are dead because then, our unconscious stuff hits us with ten times the intensity.

The same applies to climate change. The quicker we make the fundamental changes we need to make, the better off we will be. In short, we can’t hide from either of those issues without terrible consequences. So what is holding us back?

I realized the issue of death, was the primary motivation for my earlier writing about Climate Change here on Medium, and it was the primary focus of my short book: The Magical Universe: Answering the Call of Climate Change for Personal and Global Transformation.

Dealing With Death and Climate Change is Liberating

In my mind, Climate Change was the issue that could bring the world together because it is such an existential threat. How could people not use this issue to wake up and realize our existence, not only as individuals, but as a species, is on the line.

Surely I thought, this was the issue that would bring a major paradigm shift in our thinking about the world and who we are. It always seems to take a catastrophe to get most people to change. Normally this takes the form of a personal crisis: the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a life threatening illness or accident that sparks us to change our worldview. I thought Climate Change would be that issue for the world, bringing us together.

While concern is growing and some improvements have been made, it still doesn’t appear the real threat to our existence has affected us deep enough to bring about the fundamental change we need. Things are just not bad enough yet to spark that change in consciousness.

Our Modern Nihilistic Worldview

The Ukraine War, other world conflicts, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, income inequality, poverty, lack of health care, a bloated military budget, the list could go on and on, reveal that we still see our fellow humans, as “other”, as separate from ourselves. If they aren’t part of our small social clique, we have no concern for them.

The modern worldview tells us we are material beings, and thus, by that very nature, we are separate from each other. The modern Big Bang theory, while providing us with a lot of knowledge and understanding about where we came from and how we evolved, leaves us with a meaningless and purposeless universe.

The creation that occurred 13.8 billion years ago is considered by modern science to have been one big accident and thus everything following it, including ourselves, is also an accident. We shouldn’t even be here.

With this as our worldview, how can we expect anything different than the disasters we see all around us as institution after institution crumbles in the wake of our modern nihilistic worldview.

If we ever needed a new worldview, a start over, a reset of our basic values, and a new understanding of who we are and what our purpose is on this planet, it is now. I thought Climate Change would be the issue that could bring that about. I thought facing the end of life as we know it on this planet would be the catalyst for waking people up.

While it hasn’t happened yet, at least not on the scale it needs to happen to affect major change, it could still happen, but time is running out.

Our Real Fear About Climate Change

As I said in my book, the real fear we humans have is not of Climate Change itself, but rather it’s the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings we experience when thinking about Climate Change. We don’t want to face those horrors when we confront it.

In reality it is not Climate Change we are most afraid of, it is ourselves. We are afraid to deal with ourselves and our stuff.

That is exactly why we also run away from our own death. Dealing with Climate Change is the same as dealing with death. In the end we are terrified of facing up to who we are so we try to hide.

But ignoring Climate Change and Death, will come with a heavy price tag. The planet will soon pass numerous tipping points, making it impossible for us to do anything. In terms of death, if we neglect to handle our stuff now we will never be able to handle the onslaught that will hit us with ten times the intensity after we die. For more detail on this, see the articles I have written recently on death.

The big taboo subject in our modern world used to be sex. No one could bring it up in polite society. But sex is no longer the taboo subject it once was. Now Death is. Nobody wants to talk about it. Try talking about it seriously and you can clear a room.

The Paradox of Death and Climate Change

Ironically, not dealing with death will make our deaths much more painful than they need to be, and not dealing with climate change will end in disaster for ourselves and the planet. Our fear of death is what is fueling the Climate Change problem. It is preventing us from facing it and ourselves head on.

Ironically once again, if we would deal with death, and by that I mean dealing with our unconscious fears, doubts, trauma and insecurities, we not only could save the planet, we could save ourselves. By facing up to our death, we actually improve our lives by getting rid of those fears, insecurities, doubts and trauma. Then we will be able to live more fulfilled and joyful lives.

It’s Win/Win

It’s a win/win situation. That is why I think death is the most important issue we need to face. When we do, all the alienation we feel toward other people, and frankly even ourselves, that lead to wars and all the other problems on the planet will begin to evaporate.

We will wonder, what the hell were we thinking? How could we have ever believed such nonsense that people who aren’t just like us are the “other”, the enemy?

Facing death will enable us to live a life without fear and become the best “form of ourselves” we can be. Climate Change and Death are the doorways, the new birth canal, to lead not only to our rebirth, but to the planet’s as well.

Death is the pathway to live life more fully and passionately.

To learn more about the magic of the universe: Click this link: The Magical Universe.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay