When You Can’t Face The Climate Situation

Feb 8, 2023

Because I’m having one of those weeks, really months, where I can’t face the news or the petro 💩heads misinformation campaigns or even take much pleasure in the good climate news.

And that’s both okay and scary.

Okay because I need to take breaks from the crisis. We all do. You are taking breaks, yes?!?

Scary because I see, as I’m sure you do too, how not paying attention, how putting our heads down into our work or our play or our writing or our families can easily become not doing anything ever again.

And that’s not good. This idea that we’re powerless or it’s too late to affect real change is a lie.

I started a novel in December and, of course, it includes climate change.

The novel is a contemporary fantasy and the source of the magic is billions of people escaping into fantasy and distractions of all kinds because they believe it’s too late to save the planet.

And middle-aged women are going to harness the magic to help the earth because that’s exactly what we would do!

There’s a school to learn how to work with magic and it’s way better than Hogwarts.

Do you see the irony?

I can’t face the climate reality right now so I’m writing a novel in which women learn to use that truth — how hard it is for us to face the world as it is — to work with the magic created by escapism to buy us time for humanity to fix things.

Irony aside, we can all use our creativity even when we are afraid and stuck. It may not be as good as shutting down Wells Fargo but maybe writing this will get me back on the picket line.

All I can say is keep creating.

Keep trying.

I’m with you. And so are millions of other people.