We’re All Going to Need Skills.
Because those in power probably aren’t going to do what’s necessary to prevent further global warming.
It’s become difficult for me to read or watch anything about the climate catastrophe now perched menacingly on our doorstep with anything other than a sense of grim resignation. Sometime in the last six months or so, I lost whatever remaining hope I had that those in positions of power in our world are going to take the urgent, radical, comprehensive steps necessary to reverse the man-made warming which scientists predict will melt the Arctic permafrost and release its trapped methane, stop the Atlantic current, turn much of the world into desert, and cause untold but completely predictable worldwide suffering. I now have faith only that November’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow will result in soaring rhetorical lip service followed by flaccid inadequate action.
My wife and I have four children in our blended family, ranging in age from 15 to 23. And I’ve struggled, during this summer of heat domes and wildfires and hurricanes and stupid behavior over public health measures, with what to say to them. When I was a pre-teen during the Cold War, nuclear annihilation was on everybody’s mind. But it was possible for parents to not only to tell children that there were good-intentioned people in power working hard to prevent that, but also to recognize that all the world’s leaders had to do to prevent that cataclysm was just…. not launch the missiles.
It feels completely disingenuous to give young people assurances like that regarding global warming. And variants of “there’s still a chance that we’ll stop this in time” seem patronizing and pollyannish, particularly given that young people can read and comprehend the same scientific warnings that adults can, and recognize that they’re not being heeded. Indeed, most indications are that today’s children and young people are going to inherit a gargantuan shit sandwich from us.
Yes, we can and should continue to hope; hope is good. And the struggle to get those in power to do what’s necessary should absolutely continue, and intensify. But rationality and realism demand that we also prepare for a negative outcome. To badly paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, we need to accept the grim meathook reality and start wiring ourselves, to at least some degree, into a survival trip.
I don’t claim to be prescient enough to know what a life on a future Earth several degrees warmer will look like, or which parts of it will be (relatively) safe. In that world, the only certainty will be uncertainty. That’s problematic, because in the industrialized democracies, we’ve gotten used to a great deal of certainty. Even more so in those nations among them with robust social safety nets. We’re accustomed to professional medical care being available to us at a few minutes’ notice, to stocked supermarket shelves, to being able to find people to service the wealth of complex gadgetry in our homes. Consequently, I suspect that the majority of us lack skills that are useful outside the needs of our own lives, or that might be useful in a very different, very uncertain world. It’s certainly — shamefully — true of me.
So, it’s time for each of us, to the greatest extent possible given our available resources, to start learning those skills. The options are obvious. First aid. Practical self-defense. Gardening. Safe firearms use. Ham radio operation. Hunting. Repairing electrical devices. Fixing engines. Local foraging. Learn one or learn a few, these or others — whatever you can take on with the resources at your disposal. If you already know such a skill, commit to learning another.
And if possible, don’t stop there. Talk to your neighbors and friends. If you live in an apartment building or condo complex, talk to the other people who live there. Consider hosting a meeting. Encourage those of like mind to acquire skills too, as varied a set as possible. Take it upon yourself to gather information about opportunities to learn those skills, so you can pass it on to interested others. Encourage participants to share their progress with each other, to keep motivated. Consider maintaining a list of who has what skills, just in case. If you have children, encourage them to learn skills, or teach them yourself.
In the midst of crisis, children and new adults understandably rely on those older than them, adults with knowledge and life experience, to have things in hand. They don’t require certainty; they haven’t gotten accustomed to that yet, at least from the world beyond their immediate family groups. And children, in particular, are surprisingly adaptable to change. But they do need to be able to trust that those older than them are in charge of the situation, and are competent, knowledgeable and skilled enough to hopefully get them through it. That level of trust is a part of what builds not just healthier families, but healthier communities, and healthier societies. Societies in which people come together in a crisis, cooperate, consider the needs of people other than themselves, and pool their resources, talents and skills are more likely to remain healthy — or at least to survive. Our experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic should be all the proof you need of that.
What I’ve set out here most certainly isn’t a recipe for guaranteed survival, whether individually or societally, and it’s even less a recipe to ensure that our lives go on much as they have in the decades to come. But I believe that it is a recipe for making an uncertain, potentially shitty future somewhat less shitty. For all of us, especially for our children.
