Climate change & feeling crazy: some personal reflections

A few years ago, I wanted to believe that my life and the lives of people around me would go on the way they have up until now. And I'm still tempted to do that. It looks easier!  In the short term it IS easier.
The trouble is that I realised my mind had to work hard to manage this disconnect.  There I was talking about the science of climate change, of mass extinctions, of unsustainable lifestyles on the one hand, but continuing to get into planes, to drive, to eat and to live what I recognised logically was a completely unsustainable life without really thinking about what I was doing.

I tried out a lot of justifications and I'm still tempted to use them sometimes.  These include things like:

I can't really make a difference as one person, so why try?
I'm doing so much in other parts of my life that I deserve to have some fun sometimes, or
I'm travelling for work, so this doesn't really count as my personal consumption. 


The part of me that keeps looking for ways out has also tried these approaches:   


Well,  nobody else is doing anything, so I may as well enjoy myself while I can,
They'll all think I"m crazy,
Maybe this is not real and I might be completely wrong because nobody else seems worried, or

I don't want to be THAT person (the one that rants on incessantly and makes life uncomfortable for everyone).

On top of this, I sit in on a lot of conversations about people's fantastic trips to amazing places where my mind tells me that I'm just plain boring.


But then I think about the children I know whose lives might be very difficult, or worse, perhaps even very short.  I think about the people I love and I don't want to see them suffering.  And that makes me want to do everything I can to make whatever difference I can, to the best of my ability. 

When I do look at it squarely, I see that if we could pull out of the mire of our foolish busyness, and work together build a future (any future!), it would be possible to effect the change we need, and to have good, happy lives as well.  And yet, I see a lot of good people turning their heads away from the truth of what this really needs because the path to disaster takes less attention, thought and effort.