Opening the second trinity, on Christmas Eve, is Hope. Things are much better than most of us think. I go to this theme so often because it really infuriates me. I love what Greta Thunberg is doing, I think she is a hero of millenia proportions.
But I can’t agree with this sentiment: “I don’t want your hope. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I do. Every day.”
She accuses us of doing nothing, but a whole lot us are doing things, big things, important and aggressive things.
I get it, I know why she wants that, I understand how fear and anger can be strong motivators, but frankly I think there are stronger and more resilient ways to inspire action.
The truth matters, and the truth is we have the technology and the time to address this issue and possibly still avert a catastrophe. Clearly we’ve waited too long to prevent the horrible damage we are already seeing, but this alarmist end-of-the-world rhetoric has been the central message offered by activists on this issue for years and years, so maybe it’s not working that well.
Maybe the folks who need convincing just turn off to doom-and-gloom messages of hopelessness. Maybe it makes them feel like it’s already too late. If the house is already consumed in flames, the safest course is to just run outside and watch it burn–maybe to party like it’s 1999.
In fact panic is almost always the enemy of solving an acute and critical problem. Panic is the surest way to drown at sea or get burned up in a fire. When we panic we make hasty impulsive choices, we waste energy with frantic action. Interestingly, the asperger’s syndrome I share with Greta happens to make me particularly effective in a crisis. I have some faith I can find a good solution, am able to stay calm and weigh the options, make a plan, and act with the hope that it will succeed. Which it often does, even as a watch folks around me panic, spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.
COP25 in Madrid has just ended and gotten almost no coverage. I found incredible hope at COP 21: that the leaders of 98% of the countries in the world were able to get together and reach an agreement on the severity and urgency of this issue was inspiring. Maybe we are not doing enough yet, but I’m not at all certain that a shift from inspiration and hope to panic and despair is the solution.
Sadly fear mongering is the tactic that almost all activists use, and sadly, I suspect it is one of the reasons why change is so difficult. It fires up your base, and gets folks making noise, but it also alienates the other side, makes people stressed and irrational, and creates anger that tends to beget more anger from the opposition.
Sorry Greta, I love you, but take a few breaths, try to stay calm, and let’s all hope we can join together in mutual aggressive action to help each other in solving this problem. All we lack is the will, and my take is that good will is the more likely one to be shared and multiply.
Happy Hope and
HOLLY DAYS 