It’s the year 2010. Icebergs are melting, forest fires are raging out of control, sea levels are rising, drinking water is becoming scarcer, droughts, famine, conflict — climate related pressures — are growing exponentially. Are you experiencing climate anxiety? Perhaps you prefer climate denial? Or are you feeling through the heartbreak, to the possibility that lies beyond?
The undeniable fact is that this planet, and the humans that live on Her, are in deep deep trouble. If we continue to drag our feet, resisting the changes we need to make, the majority of scientists are predicting that we will experience runaway climate destabilization within this century.
In the face of all this, I have a question for you: how can this crisis — the greatest challenge humanity has yet faced – be transformed into the greatest love story on earth?
“The future belongs to the most compelling story.” — Drew Dellinger
Humans are story makers, myth makers — we are continually weaving disparate events into coherent narratives. It gives form and substance to our life journey, it gives us meaning. At any given moment, we are making choices about which stories we will animate. Often these choices are unconscious, and for many of us, we simply follow the script put forth by the dominant culture – or what cultural theorist bell hooks calls, “the dominator culture.” Will we seize on the stories popular in mass media — such as the apocalyptic narrative of the movie “2012”? Or the subtler apocalypse stories put forth by well meaning progressives, who have grown accustomed to what visionary activist Caroline Casey, calls “righteous disappointment?”