While the Forests Burn
What's Lost in a World of Climate Extremes?
Last week, the East Coast witnessed the orange haze of wildfire smoke that blanketed buildings, grounded flights, and left 100 million people across North America facing poor air quality alerts, ranging from mildly unhealthy to flat out hazardous.
We know who to blame (and it’s not Canada).
But what is more poignant to reflect on is this: What do we stand to lose because of climate change?
There’s an obvious, apocalyptic answer.
But there are lots of smaller but still consequential things that are already being lost as our world changes.
We stand to lose World Heritage sites— famously, of course, sinking Venice, but also Yellowstone, the Ilulissat Icefjord glacier in Greenland, moai statues on Easter Island that date to around 300 AD, and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, to name just a few. When these sites are lost, we lose the biodiversity of the region, but we also lose the rich history.
We lose personal and familial history when our loved ones can’t retrace our steps. Part of my honeymoon was spent in Italy— my great-grandchildren may one day get to meet my husband and I, but chances are they will never get to re-trace our steps in Venice. This is a relatively minor issue for my progeny, but it is of enormous consequence for indigenous cultures who have passed down wisdom and knowledge that is deeply connected to their community’s sense of “place.”
We risk losing documents and artifacts that connect us to our history. Even in the United States, where we don’t have ancient monuments to fret over, museums and historical sites are still vulnerable to the irreparable damage of flood and fires. And in other parts of the world, climate events are both exposing long-lost artifacts… and threatening their survival.
Millions of people stand to lose their homes— not only their vacation homes, but the residences they spent decades saving for, their childhood homes, and their ancestral homes.
The relocation of entire communities might be necessary to limit loss of human life in the event of flooding, wildfires, and other worsening climate disasters— but it still comes with the ripping apart of community bonds and, in some cases, livelihoods, as people are forced to abandon local businesses or relocate from rural to urban areas.
And lest we think of this as a somewhere else kind of problem, most large insurance companies have already begun pulling out of states like California and Florida that are most vulnerable to climate-related weather disasters. If your first instinct, like mine, is shock and dismay at this decision: Remember that insurance companies, not unlike every other corporation, exist to make a profit for shareholders. Their financial obligation is not, in fact, aligned with the best interests of the families they insure.
As a middle school student in the suburbs of Dallas, I witnessed the displacement of Hurricane Katrina— the families who fled from New Orleans with nothing more than the clothes on their backs just in time for school enrollment. Some had friends or relatives to stay with, but I also remember the “rent-by-the-week” motel became a stop on my bus route that unloaded easily a dozen kids. Most, of course, eventually returned to re-build their lives in New Orleans, but certainly not everyone. While the damage from Katrina was a class of its own, even weak hurricanes are becoming more destructive.
And for those of us in the Midwest or the East Coast who have rested in the false security that these kind of disasters won’t happen here… well, the smoke of the past few days has come with a very different idea of our future.
What is lost in the future where the outdoors is off-limits?
I’m too young to have ever had the quintessential childhood experience of being kicked out of the house to play outside and told not to return until supper (that seems like a relic of the ‘70s…). But still, the outdoors was an option. For thousands of children this past week, that simply wasn’t the case (And for the record, saying: “There’s a big fire making the air yucky to breathe” doesn’t do a whole lot to quell a 3 year old’s temper tantrum).
Of our (thankfully relatively healthy) family’s medical ailments include allergies to dust (my husband), cats (me), and smoke/ chemical scents (also me). The outdoors has traditionally been a safe haven from all of these things. (Except, potentially, wild cats— in which case we have bigger problems than sneezing.)
Our connection to the natural world matters. Time spent in the outdoors has numerous health benefits, including encouraging physical activity and calming the nervous system. The outdoors teaches us to trust our bodies— you can’t very well hike, rock climb, or kayak without trusting your instincts— and reminds us that we are just a small part of something much larger than ourselves. The outdoors has a way of breathing life into our souls (there’s a reason Henry David Thoreau disappeared into the woods…).
But beyond that, it is hard to comprehend the importance of protecting something that we don’t value, and it’s hard to value something we have never experienced. Already, fewer children are playing outdoors than ever before (only an estimated 6% of children ages 9-13 play outside unsupervised) and spending less time than their parents did outdoors. In fact, children today spend only an average of 4 hours a week outside— but around 7 hours a day on screen time. How many children have never climbed a tree or taken a hike? My first hike happened when I was 19— and it was fundamentally transformative in shaping who I am as a person and my understanding of climate advocacy. How many of our little ones are losing these outdoor experiences due to “busy” culture, complacency around screen time, or the increasing prevalence of extreme weather and heat events? What does that mean for the generations we are tasking with solving everything from micro-plastic pollution to carbon emissions?
It is hard to comprehend the importance of protecting something that we don’t value, and it’s hard to value something we have never experienced.
If this was your first foray into climate despair, Laura Fenton offers some excellent resources over on Living Small. And for the rest of us, it’s time to take some new steps to end the action-emotion gap on climate issues. Instead of doomsday-scrolling or pretending the crisis isn’t here, try:
Making time for nature— bonus points if you take your kids or invite a wilderness-averse friend.
Check out some easy ways to defund deforestation.
Become a more intentional curator of the “things” you bring into your life— including taking responsibility for the entire life cycle of your stuff. (Here’s some creative resources for re-homing and recycling if you’re in a decluttering season).
Put your money where your mouth is— here are some of the most effective climate charities.
Make a phone call or send an e-mail to someone in a position of authority— whether it’s your local township to encourage composting, your bank to suggest they stop financially supporting environmentally destructive industries, a corporation to suggest they reduce plastic packaging or vet their supply chain for deforestation, or your congressional representatives for just about anything.
Simply put, the potential losses of climate extremes are too great to ignore. To preserve our connections to the natural world, don’t sit idly by while the forests burn.