Environmental Crisis Denial and Acceptance

Yesterday a friend who is working on biomass issues with me confided to me that on his drive home yesterday he finally started to see that this biomass legislation we're working on might actually work and be the best thing for Vermont's economy ... ever... he started to cry. Not tears of joy, but sadness for the environment and all the crap we're in. But why shouldn't he be happy? We may have just found a big chunk of the solution?

This reminded me of my super-low point just after getting back from the North American Association of Environmental Educators (NAAEE) conference when I didn't get out of my PJs for a whole day, because I was so depressed about global climate change. Why shouldn't I be excited about the future after hanging around with a bunch of people who care deeply about the Earth?


My hypothesis is that most people who believe global warming is real and anthropogenic (human-caused) have no way to see through the current culture of pollution to any kind of viable solution. They have no way to deal, no way to cope with the issue, and so it's emotionally suppressed.

Like you don't expose children to sex or violence - that's considered abuse - because they have no framework in which to deal with those issues. They lack the tools to understand it.

This is why I think once people have a clearer picture of what sustainability could be - they get really sad, (no doubt partially because we've got such a long way to go), but also because they now have the space to accept the situation and emotionally engage with our environmental reality.