Daunted by Climate Concern? Let’s Explore Our Options

Biologist and policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has developed a valuable visual tool for helping us each figure out how we can individually contribute to addressing the daunting climate crisis.  During SOCAN’s January meeting, we will discuss a short TED talk by Dr. Johnson during which she presents her vision. Rather than asking folks to try to solve the global problem alone, Johnson offers a relatively painless route to identifying personal tactics that suggests that we first ask ourselves: ‘What brings you joy?’ She then asks us to identify ‘What we are good at?’ Finally, where these intersect, we ask ‘What needs doing (and falls within this intersection)?’

With 2023 clocking in as the hottest year on record, placing us very close to the 1.5⁰ degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial conditions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change identify as our safe upper limit for warming, those of us concerned about preserving some semblance of life as we know it on our planet must ensure that 2024 is the ‘Year for Significant Action.’ This may also be the hottest year in 125,000 years, indicating that we have not yet turned the corner on addressing this looming and daunting crisis. Responding to the crisis by claiming that, ‘it’s all part of a natural cycle,’ that ‘it’s too late to divert the trajectory,’ or that ‘nothing I do makes a difference’ doom us to crossing tipping points beyond which there is no return.

It’s time for us all to reinvigorate ourselves and focus on what needs to be done. Through hands-on engagement, SOCAN’s January Public General meeting will help us explore and identify what we can do.  The meeting will consider both individual actions that we can undertake and collective actions we can join that seek to move communities forward. If you are ready to revisit what you can do to make a difference, please join us.