and then we'll be okay

Sometimes I think about the future (or lack thereof) of humanity and wonder what's the point of anything. And sometimes I sink into paralysis. 

Some time ago, my boyfriend sent me this.

Meanwhile on Facebook...

Empathy

Last week, I explored the reaction to environmental crisis from a place of fear. 

What if we come from a place of empathy?

That was hard to watch. 😭 

This video of a turtle with a straw stuck up its nose was quite frequently referenced when the plastic straw campaign first took off. 

Plastic straws suck!

I remember friends all over Facebook posting about saying "NO" to plastic straws and wondering, "why the sudden hype?" 

Nas Daily's hot take on the plastic straw dilemma echoed my thoughts. (Linked: Facebook video that I can't embed here.) In short, he points out hypocrisies in the environmental PR policies of some big companies. Specifically,

1. he criticises McDonalds for banning plastic straws but still using plastic spoons, cup covers, and other disposable plastic;
2. then goes on to criticise McDonalds for wanting to save turtles, while being responsible for  millions of other animals dying every year - pigs, cows... basically, the meat we eat. 
3. He calls this selective empathy. 

  

Meat?                                       Pet?

Selective empathy is when we care about some plastic, some animals, and some humans. Nas concludes that saving one plastic straw is good (Practice the new and improved 5R's! Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.), but caring about the actual problem is even better. 

Yes, the plastic straw campaign could encourage people to begin to care more about environmental issues. On the other hand, it's also a form of virtue signalling, or greenwashing. 

Back to empathy.

WWF trapped a man indoors for a week and filmed his experience as they introduced pollution, global warming, and habitat loss to his living quarters. (Linked: another Facebook video.) The man, Francis, narrates his experiences, which helps us empathise with the suffering we have brought upon wildlife. The video invites us to empathise with our future too: "But we can't leave the planet."

Brené Brown on Empathy

Perhaps, in order to better respond to our self-sabotaging trajectory of damage to the environment, we would do better to feel it first. 

(Edited to add this wonderful NatGeo article on the history of plastic straws.)

The Apocalypse

Happy 2019! What better way to start off the New Year than with The Apocalypse!

I really like how this video shows that the "the world is going to end so let's give up and enjoy ourselves while we can" mindset is just another form of climate denialism. Good stuff.

One critique I have for ContraPoints ("the Oscar Wilde of YouTube") is that (at the risk of catastrophizing) an environmental refugee crisis may eventually lead to Total War.

The last time that happened, someone dropped 2 nuclear bombs somewhere.

SIPRI (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), a think-tank that does research on security, conflict and peace, has a research programme dedicated to Climate Change and Risk. Together with SEI, SIWI and SRC (the Planetary Boundaries folks), they try to encourage institutional reforms in the UN Security Council to better manage security risks of climate change.

Linking climate change to security is a "survivalist" approach in environmental discourse. It may be more effective - more Realistic - than the other approaches identified in Dryzek's book, The politics of the earth: environmental discourses. (The other approaches are environmental governance, sustainability, and activism.)

Environmental discourses defined by Dryzek's taxonomy

A few reasons why I'm restarting this blog:

1. New Year New Me 
2. Academia can feel alienating from broader concerns 
3. To explore a wider range of environmental discourses than my thesis. "Alternative theses", if you will. (A. Hansen, 2018)
4. Engage in discussion and debate with readers 

A few principles I'll blog by:

1. Short and sweet
2. Keep things light
3. Link to other content creators - there's so much information out there already
4. Catalogue resources - tags 
5. Document personal communication - I've spoken with so many people about environmental issues, it's a shame our conversations don't have a wider reach 

Uh... I'll try, ok Regina George?