A Future We Can Love by Susan Bauer-Wu

Author:Susan Bauer-Wu [Bauer-Wu, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2023-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Optimism. Hope. I prefer fewer syllables, other things being equal, and I like that “hope” is a verb. But whatever word works for you, we can agree the distinction is important: hoping and working together for a future we can love is definitely not the same thing as counting on it while doing nothing about it.

Katharine Hayhoe says she is asked almost every single day what gives her hope. “I’ve turned that around and I’ve asked hundreds of people the same question here in North America and Europe and beyond. I got a lot of different answers, but they all boil down to people seeing other people act, recognizing that we are not alone, recognizing that I as an individual can make a difference through using my voice, through advocating for change in my place of worship, in the place where I work, in my community, in my neighborhood, in my school, in my social organization, as part of my city or state or country.” An evangelical Christian, Katharine is famous for finding ways to engage in dialogue about the climate crisis with people who initially don’t want to talk about it at all. Overflowing with clear, practical advice and examples, she is one of the most articulate and compelling climate activists that I have ever heard. The trick, she says, is to talk about what people already care about; that’s our “in,” because no matter what it is, there’s a climate angle. Some people’s capacity to wake up and change to cleaner energy, for example, starts with saving money, when they see that it will reduce their monthly utilities bill. Meeting people where they are and being willing to work from there strikes me as hope in action. Our motivations can be pretty prosaic, yet Katharine wants us to know that at least for a start, that’s okay. Whatever it takes.

Lyla June finds hope for the future in learning from the past. She reminds us that the Great Plains of the United States, for example, were created by people in cooperation with nature, not by nature alone. In some Indigenous lunar calendars, she says, “the September moon is called the Grass Burning Moon, because it was time to burn the plains.” She explains, burning recycles the nutrients of the expired plant tissues by turning it into ash. The ash goes into the soil, bringing potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus along with it. Burning also creates charcoal that, as Lyla puts it, “creates little apartment rooms for microbiomes.” So, this kind of controlled burning returns nutrients to the soil, stimulates microbial activity in the soil, supports certain species that only flower after fire, and significantly reduces the chance of uncontrolled wildfires.

If they hadn’t burned those prairies, Lyla says, “if you leave the grasslands alone, they will close into shrubs and trees. Grasslands don’t live without humans. So, what you have in the wake of these fires is that nutrient-dense grasslands come up, and who loves nutrient-dense grasses? Buffalo. A

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.