See Through the Smoke 

Here on the West Coast, we will soon enter — if we haven’t already — smoke season, when haze in the air amplifies stress about the future. While the climate crisis brings with it many challenges, from rising seas to increased needs for justice and a change to the status quo, wildfire smoke is a singular, immediate, eye-watering reminder that we are already in trouble. Smoke season is a time of high anxiety for people concerned about the future of life on this planet. If you are reading this, that’s probably you.
 
The tricky part about climate anxiety is that it is based on justifiable threats — not imaginary ones. As this article in Harvard Medicine explains, such anxiety can therefore be difficult to treat. And it’s showing up increasingly in the younger generations. Greta Thunberg, whom Earth Island Journal interviewed in 2019, exemplifies this kind of anxiety for young people, even as she acts to counter it. One of Thunberg’s deepest fears is that we will reach a “tipping point, and then there’s no going back. Then it doesn’t matter what we do.”
 
How, in the face of all these fears, can we find a way for things we do to matter? As smoke season approaches, perhaps we should recognize that sometimes the fight is not external — though there are plenty of battles to be won in this world. Sometimes the fight is internal, a fight against dread, against disillusionment, against despair. If these (powerful, legitimate) fears win the day, they prevent us from imagining a better future, and without that imagination, the work becomes harder. I would encourage you to take this season as an opportunity to look inward, to face your fears, to imagine a better future — no matter how hard it is to do so.
 
The future needs you. And it needs you today.
 

Photo by Lois Elling

Slow Your Roll

A new program encourages cargo ships off the California coast to slow down in an effort to reduce both whale strikes and greenhouse gas emissions. 
 

Butterfly Effect

What started as a pastime for one nature photographer has turned into a full-blown effort to document Colombia’s incredible butterfly diversity. 
 

Too Much Water

In the former coal town of Longyearbyen, Norway, is warming faster than any other place on Earth. Its mayor says jobs are no longer a concern here: increasing rainfall is. 
 

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