November brought to New England a spate of unusually warm days.
My friends’ social posts fell into two categories: “This is amazing! Loving the summer vibes! 🤩” accompanied by photos of bare feet on lawn chairs hastily rummaged from winter storage. The other camp was more along the lines of “Oh my gaaawwd, I weep for our children’s future! 😭” along with disgruntled selfies scowling into the sun.
My friend Beth called it “Nicelarming (adj): When the weather is very pleasant, yet you feel alarmed by its unseasonality.” Indeed, nicelarming weather is one of the many dichotomies of climate change.
Living in an uncertain climate can totally screw with our brains. Our challenge is to “yes, and” the heck out of otherwise conflicting thoughts: We are experiencing a major crisis and we are making progress; catastrophes are upending life and we are preventing things from getting worse; we are running out of time and we will never stop trying.
We can take heart in knowing that our efforts are working. I like to tell my neighbor—who diligently composts, recycles, upcycles, and burns fallen trees for heat—that it’s actually her regular investment in bamboo toilet paper that is driving this upward trend.
But it’s more likely that the cost of renewable energy has fallen so quickly that it’s cheaper than fossil fuels and it’s rolling out at a pace that’s putting a meaningful dent in carbon pollution. We can also thank a groundswell of public support, political will, and now, due to three major climate laws, the funding to tackle climate head on.
In this last issue of the year, we’re going to peek at some big climate news on the world stage and relish a huge list of stateside climate actions that made quiet headlines in just the last couple months. Global promises are awesome, but it’s hard to stay reassured unless you can see where the rubber meets the road … or where the pilings bolster the turbines, as it were.
