Help the Helpers
Plus opportunities to retreat and to listen
Hello friends,
Happy Earth Day. How are we doing? Me, I oscillate. Sometimes I’m caught up in the euphoria of spring, and sometimes I’m dwelling on the most recent IPCC report or whatever climate superstorm (literal or metaphorical) has hit the news.
Let’s take a moment for the recent IPCC synthesis report, which didn’t get very much media, but in fairness it didn’t tell us anything new. This synthesis report is the fourth and final report from the cycle started in 2021. With every report I automatically think back to the infamous “we have 12 years” IPCC special report that really set my hair on fire in 2018. Twelve years is so little time, and somehow five of those years have already passed. There’s been an increase in climate talk, and even some meaningful climate action in that time, but it still remains firmly in the category of not-enough (to reference one of my favourite poems).
The Canadian federal government recently released its emissions data for 2021 and here’s what it looks like:
Certainly not enough. Even the 2023 “clean” federal budget will not be nearly enough to get us on track: yes, we increased funding in green energy but also continued to subsidize our massive fossil fuel industry and fund new oil and gas projects. Looking forward, Climate Action Tracker decries our policies as “highly insufficient” — the category that would put us on track for 4 degrees of warming (a hellscape) if everyone lived like this. Remember, we need the graph to turn into a double-black-diamond ski hill, and this is looking like a bunny hill at best.
If we keep this up for the next five years, we are leaving our future selves, hundreds of generations of people, and all the beings that inhabit this earth a severely diminished world. This isn’t an all-or-nothing battle, of course, nor is 2030 a magic year. But right now we are just so far from where we need to be.
Is it getting grim in here, or is it just me?
The good news is this last IPCC report reaffirms that we already have a lot of the answers: we could cut emissions globally by half this decade if we put the pedal to the metal. The report notes “feasible, effective, and low-cost options for mitigation and adaptation are already available.” Widespread electrification is a great example. When it comes to implementation, we just need to break all our speed limits. We need to fly.
So what are we individuals to do? That’s always been the crux of this newsletter. Well, there’s an archive of over 75 issues with action items, and this 2020 round-up has the most important actions and guiding principles. It’s also more important than ever to put pressure on your elected officials to let them know climate action is a priority. (If you’re in Toronto, see the P.S. for an important opportunity next week!)
More than anything, keep doing the things. Writer Mary Annaïse Heglar distills it perfectly in the new book Not Too Late:
This isn’t about climate action at all. It’s about climate commitment. Climate action is recycling or voting or opting for a vegan meal. Climate commitment includes those singular actions, but is bigger still. It’s a framework. It’s asking yourself: What can I do next? And always next.
Above all, climate commitment (my new favourite term) also means doing things together. Recently I listened to the excellent On Being interview with biomimicry expert Janine Benyus, who, with her consulting firm, is leading change inspired by the wisdom of nature. And this really resonated with me:
I’ve spent my whole life reading about organisms and learning about them and living in and amongst them. And the more you know, the more you realize, all you can do is try to be hospitable. Literally, help the helpers.
Here she’s talking about learning from the natural world, but we can also learn from the human ecosystems all around us. Who are the people bringing care, justice, redistribution, and regeneration to this planet and to your community? It has never been more vital to trust the experts, support the organizers. Amplify, advocate, collaborate, fund the people and organizations already doing great things.
We won’t see another IPCC report until 2030, because they’ve told us all we need to know. We have the information. We have the tools. We have a looming deadline. Let’s keep not just a liveable but a beautiful future in our sights. Let’s treat this like the emergency it is. Twelve years become seven so quickly.
Two special things to share with you today:
The Climate Feelings Retreat is back!
You may remember in September I created a retreat that allowed us to let our climate feelings free range — and survey says it was wonderful. You’d think airing out your anger or ambivalence would feel terrible, but in the company of seven other fine people on a beautiful fall day I found it generative and life-affirming. I felt seen, supported, and part of a network of people who really do care.
I’m hosting the retreat again this June, collaborating with the wonderful Tamara Grossutti, a climate activist, facilitator, and certified yoga teacher who will be leading us through the yoga and meditation components. I’ve taken Tamara’s climate-focused yoga classes, and they are really grounding and nourishing (and suitable for total beginners). Similarly, you don’t have to be a die-hard activist in the throes of burnout to attend the workshop; you just have to be someone who feels like they have some feelings about the climate crisis they’d like to explore.
Tamara and I are both donating our time so this can be accessibly priced: a suggested donation of $25 for the whole day’s programming. After costs are deducted, all remaining funds will be donated to Indigenous Climate Action.
You can read more about the workshop and register over at Eventbrite. Spaces are limited!
I’m gardening out loud
I’m struggling with using the word “podcast,” but I did in fact launch a little audio project here on Substack this week. It’s an experiment in sharing what’s happening in the garden each week during the 2023 growing season, in welcoming you to one of my most beloved spaces and sharing my enthusiasm for all its daily wonders. I want to explore what it means to set aside doing and focus on being. To focus on observation over production, abundance over scarcity. It’s meant to be relaxing and restorative, a way to prioritize connection, care, and wonder.
If that intrigues, you can sign up to get weekly episodes and updates emailed to you over at the Gardening Out Loud Substack (the emails have bonus content), or subscribe wherever you normally get your podcasts.
In those two things, you can see two important pillars of how I deal with my big climate feelings: talking about them and embracing the things that nourish me. (The third pillar is taking whatever action I can as a climate-committed gal. I do most of the things I’ve recommended over the course of these dispatches, but I’ve also become a grant-writing, committee-sitting person.)
But let’s finish with the words of someone wiser than me . . .
Parting wisdom
We need a large-scale change in perspective. To reframe climate change as an opportunity — a chance to rethink who we are and what we desire.
What if we imagined “wealth” consisting not of the money we stuff into banks or the fossil-fuel-derived goods we pile up, but of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to good food produced without abuse of labor? What if we were to think of wealth as security in our environments and societies, and as confidence in a viable future?
— Rebecca Solnit, “What if Climate Change Meant Not Doom — but Abundance?”
Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of this precious world.
xo
Jen
P.S. One more action item for those in Toronto: the Infrastructure and Environment Committee is meeting on Wednesday, April 26, to discuss a number of eco issues, including implementing a carbon budget, an accountability process for that budget, and EV infrastructure. You can sign up to deputize or submit written comments to show how important this issue is. Submit your comments via email to iec@toronto.ca, and sign up to depute by e-mail to iec@toronto.ca or by phone at 416-392-4666.
Five Minutes for Planet is written by me, Jen Knoch, and edited by the incredible Crissy Calhoun. Opening photo by Natalie Kinnear on Unsplash.