Things I don't Understand

I haven’t written in a Long time. It’s certainly not because I have nothing to say. It might have something to do with the insane hours I put in at my job. But it’s mostly because I’ve been listening. There are a lot of voices speaking up for the first time, or that have been speaking up for a long time and are finally being heard. So I’m listening.

The shortest summary I can give for my stance as an environmentalist, is that we’ve failed. Maybe it occurred when Trump got elected. Maybe it was that seemingly insignificant day when the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide? It is quite possible that it has been a different day for every different person, and clearly, that day hasn’t come for some, yet. But as I increasingly allow myself to understand what it means that we have failed, I am comforted as friends and colleagues join me.

I’m talking about an utter loss of hope. A paradigm shift. The start of the apocalypse—to be dramatic.

A year ago I still felt that I was making a difference. That I could bike to work, explain to others what could be recycled, and inspire environmental literacy in our youth. Today, every time I hear a low-flying plane, I imagine it’s a nuclear bomb. Beautiful women harmonizing on the radio sing of “when the soft rains come” after the people have wiped ourselves out. Environmentalists I use to work for also make plans about where they should move to avoid rising sea-waters, increased hurricane activity, extended droughts and unforeseen things like blackouts and a breakdown of our necessary systems like food transit.

In short, I strongly believe that we’re going downhill, fast. But I’m not here to talk about that (yet).
Since I’m still listening, I want You, whoever you are reading this besides my mom and maybe my uncle, to explain these things to me. Things I really don’t understand.

I am not a professional scientist. But I spent a lot of my undergrad studying science, and I seek to continually learn about how our world works. I know that our climate is something we’re still trying to figure out, and that it runs in cycles that overlap on cycles that repeat with other cycles. Like most of our world, nature is beautifully complicated. I know that trees and plants can communicate within their communities through energy, and some sort of pheromones. I know that there are MILLIONS  of species that we aren’t even aware of, but we act like we’re the only ones who share this planet.

But there are a number of things I can’t, for the life of me, understand.

1)      Babies. I clearly missed the procreation gene, or something. I just really don’t understand how, with all the social, environmental and population issues plaguing our planet, why anyone would want to make a smaller version of themselves to have to feed and teach and grow into a decent human. In my experience, most people having babies forget that last part.

2)     Lack of systematics and mistrust for science. How many of you reading this have a degree in science? I recognize that a lot of science is funded by interest groups that can make scientists unreliable, (see below) which should prompt us to be skeptical and search for citations…not mistrust science. When someone who spends 60 hours a week studying something that interests them for a nominal wage is arguing against someone who has billions of dollars to lose and will say or do anything to not lose money… why wouldn’t you apply that skepticism to the latter.

3)      Capitalism. I understand the idea of capitalism around material things, to an extent. I don’t understand how greed can manipulate basic human services like education and healthcare.

4)      Economics. I took a couple classes on economics. One drove me to environmentalism. I really don’t understand environmental economics. Maybe economics outside of capitalism makes more sense.

5)      Apathy. In a world with SO MUCH going on, how can anyone not be bothered to care, about something, at least.

6)      Human nature. This one might be unpopular. But as an animal species-- albeit a sentient, empathetic one—there are things that are inherent to our nature that we seem to suddenly be asking everyone to ignore. Not that all people born with female genitalia have the nurturing gene, or that all men are aggressive fighters… but many of us are. I’m not opposed to the non-binary trends and appeal for an increase in sensitivity, but I wonder how it’s going to work on us apathetic animals.

These are the things I don’t expect to understand, no matter how much I’m listening.
Most days, I wake up and go through the motions because it’s what I’ve practiced doing for so long. Recycling, taking short showers, up-keeping my bike, and buying food from the local farmers market. But when I hear those low-flying planes and imagine what the blast would feel like… I feel sort of calm. That all these increasingly complicated layers of our society that don’t make any sense, might just disappear.