This was beautiful, and resonates with me in a way I can't really put words to yet. I feel like there is such a common refrain in online spaces that "if you're silent about X you're complicit", as if saying words online then absolves us from that complicity. I'm not sure that I think it's entirely useless to post about political issues, but I think it's a lot less useful than most people would like to tell themselves (same for calling/writing to representatives, which I think likewise is not entirely useless but much less than people think). But I think it's more satisfying to make outraged statements than be present in the knowledge that people are experiencing horrific suffering elsewhere and we are uselessly going along with our comfortable lives.
I also really appreciated this point: "We should have books. Instead we have no books, and what’s more, some people are beaten."
This is a fairly big deal in Australia, as you say. The fate of Pacific island nations is one of the few things that reliably shames do-nothingist politicians here on climate change.
And the (mostly potential, but now increasingly actual) economic harms of rising sea levels are being offset by remittances for Pacific Island guest workers. The politics of this are fraught, but the benefits are real and substantial.
Thanks for commenting and sharing John -- As I was writing and loosely researching this piece I was really happy when I saw that Australia is already doing something to address the coming sea level rise in the pacific. I find it interesting and a bit sad that "the discourse" broadly doesn't really focus on that.
"We should have books. Instead we have no books, and what’s more, some people are beaten."
I've recently dipped my toe into climate change/climate justice work in my job, and we're starting to have these small scale conversations about relocating communities/towns who are located in areas that are too fire/flood prone, where continuing to allow people to rebuild means they're rebuilding just about every year. We talk about climate adaptation and resilience as buzzwords, but the reality of the on the ground work is confusing and complicated - for example, what does this mean for property rights? What does this mean for First Nations people and their relationship to Country? Who exactly is in the "community" that needs to be consulted and how many people need to agree?
If anything attempting to do the work creates more anxiety about whether you're having much of an impact and if you're doing anything right, and in my experience pretty much the opposite to that cathartic grand struggle that you write about.
I was so hoping that you would read and share your perspective on this, since I think you're really experienced and insightful on this. (So of course it makes me very happy that you liked it.) I have that same experience, that seriously engaging with basically any social struggle brings the opposite of that cathartic or self-important feeling and does not soothe existing pain but brings more anxiety. Making hard decisions, like in Oz about whether people should be allowed to live in bushfire prone areas, is not really very exciting, just painful and difficult. Thanks so much for reading and commenting with your thoughts. <3
This was beautiful, and resonates with me in a way I can't really put words to yet. I feel like there is such a common refrain in online spaces that "if you're silent about X you're complicit", as if saying words online then absolves us from that complicity. I'm not sure that I think it's entirely useless to post about political issues, but I think it's a lot less useful than most people would like to tell themselves (same for calling/writing to representatives, which I think likewise is not entirely useless but much less than people think). But I think it's more satisfying to make outraged statements than be present in the knowledge that people are experiencing horrific suffering elsewhere and we are uselessly going along with our comfortable lives.
I also really appreciated this point: "We should have books. Instead we have no books, and what’s more, some people are beaten."
"as if saying words online then absolves us from that complicity" is the real kicker here. thanks for the comment.
This is a fairly big deal in Australia, as you say. The fate of Pacific island nations is one of the few things that reliably shames do-nothingist politicians here on climate change.
And the (mostly potential, but now increasingly actual) economic harms of rising sea levels are being offset by remittances for Pacific Island guest workers. The politics of this are fraught, but the benefits are real and substantial.
Thanks for commenting and sharing John -- As I was writing and loosely researching this piece I was really happy when I saw that Australia is already doing something to address the coming sea level rise in the pacific. I find it interesting and a bit sad that "the discourse" broadly doesn't really focus on that.
I really loved this bit:
"We should have books. Instead we have no books, and what’s more, some people are beaten."
I've recently dipped my toe into climate change/climate justice work in my job, and we're starting to have these small scale conversations about relocating communities/towns who are located in areas that are too fire/flood prone, where continuing to allow people to rebuild means they're rebuilding just about every year. We talk about climate adaptation and resilience as buzzwords, but the reality of the on the ground work is confusing and complicated - for example, what does this mean for property rights? What does this mean for First Nations people and their relationship to Country? Who exactly is in the "community" that needs to be consulted and how many people need to agree?
If anything attempting to do the work creates more anxiety about whether you're having much of an impact and if you're doing anything right, and in my experience pretty much the opposite to that cathartic grand struggle that you write about.
I was so hoping that you would read and share your perspective on this, since I think you're really experienced and insightful on this. (So of course it makes me very happy that you liked it.) I have that same experience, that seriously engaging with basically any social struggle brings the opposite of that cathartic or self-important feeling and does not soothe existing pain but brings more anxiety. Making hard decisions, like in Oz about whether people should be allowed to live in bushfire prone areas, is not really very exciting, just painful and difficult. Thanks so much for reading and commenting with your thoughts. <3