How To Find Purpose And Meaning In An Era Of Climate Crisis

How can a person stay optimistic and positive at a time of dramatic climate change and biodiversity loss?

I have found meaning and purpose in joining an intergenerational struggle to preserve a habitable planet, to secure fundamental freedoms, and to lay the groundwork for a future Golden Age in which the climate has been stabilized, temperatures have cooled, where all people have lives of dignity, and where we have learned to settle our differences through dialogue.

We have to shift our perspective to an intergenerational perspective.

Even under the most optimistic IPCC scenarios, many of us alive today may never live to see the day when the climate starts to cool.

But our actions today can prevent the worst impacts from being handed to future generations.

In science fiction, there is a concept known as a “generation ship” — a space ship in which several generations of human live and die, usually so that the species can reach a destination far away. We must start to see our own “Spaceship Earth” as a generation ship, and plan for future generations so that they can live on a habitable planet, rich in biodiversity, and with a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

We must act now to avoid the worst impacts of climate change

There are two important things we can do today to find purpose, meaning, and hope with respect to the future:

First, we must act today to avoid the worst impacts of climate change this century. It’s not too late to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. And we have significant control over the amount of warming that will take place this century. This should motivate all of us to do what we can, today, to start the process of stabilizing the climate. This means getting off of fossil fuels immediately and implementing social changes required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and live in better harmony with the natural limits of the Earth. Our social values must change so that we value sustainability and work towards restoration of a grossly depleted and damaged ecosystems. We will likely need to slow our lives down and set different kinds of boundaries in order to preserve what is left and start the process of rehabilitation of the climate and the environment more generally.

We must implement an intergenerational plan and be committed to a hopeful future

Second, we must implement an intergenerational plan and architect a future in which the worst climate impacts are averted— a future in which the climate will one day start to cool and return to pre-industrial temperatures. Because this will take decades or even centuries to accomplish, we must be willing to start this process even if it means many of us alive today may never see the full benefits of this plan. We will need to put many of our current differences aside and work together as a species in a way that we have never done—focused, committed, and united regarding the planetary crisis now at hand.

My life this century will not be the life I envisioned as a child. How could it? The world is now confronted with crises that are impacting my life in basic ways. But I am able to find purpose and meaning in advocacy and efforts towards stabilizing our climate and building the international peace we need to ensure the intergenerational plan that I previously mentioned.

There is a deep and profound purpose to this effort, and I invite others to consider how this type of effort and purpose could positively enrich their own lives.