“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” ~Virginia Burden
Watching spring trying to make an appearance, climate change is on my mind.
Humanity has cannibalized our planet’s resources: From shrinking Arctic ice caps to decimated rain forests, the effects of our over-industrialized world have become so evident that the rug has been ripped right out from under deniers.
Hurricanes, sink holes, and eroding shorelines.
Raging wildfires and devastating floods—last Thursday Fort Lauderdale’s airport closed due to the 20 niches of rain that poured out of the sky in 24 hours.
We were warned. Countless scientists projected the trajectory.
In 2004, David King, then the chief scientific advisor to the UK, advised the world, “Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism.”
But people have a problem with the invisible, and find it difficult to believe what they cannot yet see.
Besides, bigger is better, and profits trump people, right?
Maybe we can’t afford that collective mindset any longer.
Teamwork made tangible
I’m not a scientist, nor an engineer, and I don’t know how to fix such a global issue.
But what I do know is that it takes a bunch of individuals to create a collective.
Look at the results of the collective efforts of scientists who created the Covid vaccines in record time—the world pulled together on the pandemic front.
So, like eating an elephant, what we can do is take one bite at a time, make some small step, add one individual effort to the bucket of collective change.
Like: reduce utility consumption; unplug idle charging cords; compost; recycle; walk more, drive less; plant a tree; grow vegetables; take shorter showers; consume less media; use less plastic; become more conscious of our consumption.
Those are tangible examples of a certain mindset—one that values the future of the planet over immediate gratification. An invisible thing, made visible.
And this is humanity’s superpower: the ability to change our mindset, to alter our perspective, to make different choices.
To pull together.
And make the invisible visible.
`“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
