And so it begins...
It seems appropriate that we should all be sitting in our houses being aware of the nature around us today. The world went and got very quiet in recent weeks and we are experiencing a new kind of cacophony. Most folks have begun to really notice the birds and the breezes and many other things that had been drown out by our busy, modern lives. We seem to be settling into the stillness and this offers an unprecedented opportunity for reflection, reframing, and imagining.
The truth is, we’re having a shared human experience that is singular. There have been pandemics before covid; the 1918 Spanish Flu took 50 million lives and AIDS/HIV is still with us. This is different, we find ourselves smack-dab-in-the-middle of the looming climate catastrophe and a rapidly evolving pandemic. All bets are off.
At first glance it is sad we can’t take to the streets to celebrate our 50th earth day and the new decade. Somehow, it feels right and poetic that we should all be home contemplating nature and how we have missed her. Being slow and silent might be the most powerful action we can take right now. Some of us have the space to imagine how we might leave this planet better than we found it. If you find that space of imagination it will most certainly be a tonic.
Our imagination time is spent mostly dreaming of the new economy. One that values people and planet above profit. We imagine companies jettisoning shareholder supremacy in order to successfully navigate through the pandemic. We imagine a Green New Deal – so vast and all-encompassing that FDR himself would experience a delicious twinge of jealously. Covid may have created the conditions for real climate action because it has revealed the cracks in the foundation of this iteration of capitalism and unleashed imaginations.
Most importantly, on this 50th anniversary of earth day the old objections to change no longer hold any water. That old chorus of “we can’t change… that is impossible… you are unreasonable…” has been silenced. The whole world changed in a matter of weeks. Now, imagine for a moment what we can change in a decade.
In this stillness it feels appropriate to hear some imaginings of what you might accomplish over the next decade. We’re all in this together, covid and the climate catastrophe are ours. They are the clay from which we must craft elegant solutions, together.