“The deep and active care for the planet comes through experiences of beauty.”
Charles Eisenstein
My excitement is always palpable as I drive along the remote, untraveled roads of the southwestern French countryside into the heart of Gascony, down narrow, tree-lined lanes, through villages shrouded in mystery.
Over many years I have followed a sentimental map of the terrain, a magical landscape of rich colors and extraordinary light. This unspoiled paradise has had centuries to perfect its subtle charms.
Yet this is beginning to change. Over the past 2 years I have witnessed spring arriving early in a confusion of blossoms that wither too soon, summer heat bowing the heads of sunflowers before their seeds ripen, and winter rains filling meandering steams and flooding surrounding fields.
Echoing what I’ve experienced, I recently read a scientific report which said the microclimate of southwestern France, which has kept the region so luxuriantly green, will become more Mediterranean—hotter and dryer due to climate change. This doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. All you need to know is that global warming is one piece of the climate change scenario.
Many politicians, especially those in the United States, either don’t understand the science or choose not to because they or are beholden to the fossil fuel industry. But it’s impossible to deny our world is changing and these changes will affect every single person of every age, every race and every economic level. After all, as Wendell Berry stated so simply, ““The earth is what we all have in common.”
Last December more than 2 million French citizens signed a petition stating their government wasn’t doing enough to fight climate change, while in the United States the President cut back the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by 31%, the lowest in 40 years, at a time when its budget should be increased ten-fold. Among European countries 96% of the population agree that the climate is changing and 93% believe humans are to blame.
Admittedly, pointing fingers and citing statistics won’t change anything. In his new book, Climate—A New Story, scholar and author Charles Eisentein writes, “People are not going to be frightened into caring. Scientific predictions about what will happen 10, 20, or 50 years in the future are not going to make them care…Embracing love of nature moves people beyond denial and passivity to the action necessary to protect life on our planet…It is to know the forests as sacred again, and the mangroves and the rivers, the mountains and the reefs, each and every one. It is to love them for their own beingness…We have been speaking the wrong language, seeking a change of mind when what we really need is a change of heart.”
Resources –
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Adrian Leeds, Newsletter on Climate Change http://adrianleeds.com
Climate – A New Story by Charles Eisenstein
