What if we imagine that our political, economic, food, energy, and governance systems are destabilizing along with our global climate? What might a life-affirming and hopeful response look like? How might we begin to find a new path in our communities?
This is the question I’ve been obsessed with lately, and what I want to write about here. But let me start with a disclaimer: First, the future is unknowable. As obvious as this sounds, it took me many years of placing too much stock in predictions, models, and assessments made by experts before I fully took this to heart. Still, I’ve loved biology since I was 14, and I’ve been doing climate work in some form for the past 20 years. If experience leads to insight, I may have something useful to say 😊.
I’m starting up this blog to share my thoughts about how I see our current situation, and the work that is calling to me going forward. I plan to explore ways to build and strengthen local resilience and to live with more integrity in our destabilizing world. This includes shifting toward a life supported by clean energy, rebuilding local food systems, exploring disaster preparedness, waste reduction, and much more. I will also be looking for ways to do effective climate work at the local level. In his new novel Sun House, David James Duncan refers to this as lifeboat work, and I am drawn to the image of community lifeboats to help us weather an uncertain future.
I don’t see a pathway for avoiding truly major climate harms in the coming decades. Protecting and strengthening life support systems on scales within our communities feels like the most useful, constructive and life affirming work I can do right now. At the same time, the clean energy transition has begun, and the faster it proceeds, the more chances we’ll have to protect what we need and love on earth. So local resilience and local climate solutions are what I’ll be writing about here. I hope you’ll come along with me on this exploration. If you have ideas, feedback, or questions, I’d love to hear from you!