An Igloo in the Burning World
4/21/22 – Building shelter from the life we’re given
Hello everyone:
One bit of news: I’ve been asked to be part of a panel discussion at the Maine Lit Fest on October 8th. The Lit Fest is one of many great offerings from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. The panel will focus on how we articulate this time of profound environmental crisis.
Lest we forget about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, here are two of Timothy Snyder’s recent excellent “Thinking About…” columns regarding the new Easter offensive. In one, he provides some historical and religious context, and in the other he offers new ways to donate safely.
As always, please remember to scroll past the end of the post to read this week’s curated Anthropocene news.
Now on to this week’s writing.
Another Earth Day is upon us this Friday, April 22nd. I’m always torn, thinking about Earth Day, between the absurdity of having a single day to focus on the environment and the relief that we still have this small ritual meant to motivate us through the year. Sometimes it seems like a slightly more ambitious Arbor Day; other times it feels like a glowing ember keeping hopes alive for the necessary shift to a sustainable society. Here’s what I wrote last year:
Today is Earth Day, April 22nd, 2021. In the fifty one years since the first Earth Day, population has increased from 3.7 billion to 7.86 billion, atmospheric CO2 levels have skyrocketed from 325 parts per million to 417 ppm (for the first time in three million years), wildlife populations dropped 60%, and microplastics spread everywhere on Earth. Natural communities on land and sea around the globe are living under an extraordinary array of stresses.
Let’s do an update, shall we?
Thankfully, birth rates are on a long, slow decline, and the pandemic dropped the rate even more, but we’re still ticking upward at roughly 2.6 additional humans per second. In the last year, population has increased to an estimated 7.94 billion. CO2 level is currently 420.49 ppm, which life on Earth hasn’t experienced since the Pliocene epoch, 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago. We’re still releasing about 40 million metric tons of CO2 per year, and while great strides have been made to create an alternative energy system (solar and wind primarily) that is as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuels, many of the wealthy nations most responsible for the climate crisis are doubling down on coal, gas, and oil in the short-term as they prioritize economies over ecologies.
But the crisis is now defined by the fact that critical solutions need to arrive in the short term. The IPCC reports have made it clear that this decade – that’s eight more Earth Days – is crucial to limiting global temperature increase and the chaos that will accompany it. Meanwhile, biodiversity continues to suffer across the globe and across all types of life. Good work is being done everywhere (see the beautiful South Georgia story in my curated news below), and the U.N. has made grand plans for global biodiversity recovery, but losses still far outweigh gains. Deforestation, particularly in the tropics, is devastating some of the richest terrestrial habitats left on Earth. Parts of the Amazon are liable to turn into savannah while the region begins to emit more CO2 than it absorbs. Wetlands around the world are being lost at three times the rate of forests. Wild mammals only account for 4% of all mammal biomass (the rest is us and our livestock), and current trends suggest that percentage will continue to drop. In the oceans, acidification, deoxygenation, warming, and overfishing are taking an intensifying toll.
Shall I go on? No, I won’t, because I want instead to focus on that glowing ember keeping hopes alive.
The title to this week’s writing – An Igloo in the Burning World – seems like a perfect image to initiate a discussion of rapid climate change in the Arctic. That’s an essay I need to write, but this week I’m on a different path. The title is a compound of phrases taken from two sources I just stumbled upon. The first is an interview with Peter McIndoe, the brilliant young man who started the Birds Aren’t Real movement, and the second is the title to an upcoming collection of essays from Barry Lopez, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. The Lopez book won’t be out until late May, so I’m going to focus on McIndoe and then come back around to Lopez and Earth Day.
McIndoe made a metaphor out of an igloo that will take a few minutes to explain.
He spoke to the Guardian recently in an interview which explains how in 2017, at age 18, he accidentally initiated a popular Dada-esque response for Gen-Zers like himself to the repressive, often fascist forces at work today in American society. He noticed a bunch of aggressive pro-Trump male counterprotesters at a Women’s March in Memphis, alt-right and conspiracy-minded men whose response to the march he decided he should quietly disrupt. So, without much thought, he ripped a poster off the wall and made a sign that read “Birds Aren’t Real” and went out to mingle with them.
As he stood with the counterprotesters, and they asked what his sign meant, he improvised. He said he was part of a movement that had been around for 50 years, and was originally started to save American birds, but had failed. The “deep state” had destroyed them all, and replaced them with surveillance drones. Every bird you see is actually a tiny feathered robot watching you.
They should have laughed or scoffed and walked away. But of course, given where we are in this hypermediated landscape of corrosive, anti-democratic misinformation, his improvised nonsense became gospel after being filmed and posted on Facebook. “Birds Aren’t Real” became another false insight for a small but noisy cohort of conspiracy-soaked Americans. It also became an in-joke for Gen-Z that has grown into something of a “creative collective,” as McIndoe calls it, both a satirical lens and a comfort zone for young people working to process the lunacy of this difficult period in human history.
For those of you reading this who aren’t in your teens or early twenties (nearly all of you, I think), try to imagine what it feels like to grow up deeply aware of this American moment and its planetary context. Imagine the often traumatic experience of having social media constantly and remorselessly attempt to shape your sense of self even as it hammers you with relentless bad news. Imagine spending your teen years with the sense that there’s no bottom to the fecklessness of politics and the hopelessness of climate change. Imagine waking into adulthood with the knowledge that the landscapes you inhabit and the animals you love are all at risk. Where would you find your comfort? Where would you find a place to rest amid the constant barrage of misinformation and bad news?
Then imagine the joy of seeing in your media feed the Birds Aren’t Real activists puncturing the giant balloon of bullshit with a carefully curated litany of absurdities: President Kennedy was assassinated because he refused to go along with the deep state’s plan to replace all birds with drones; the government’s feathered drones sit on power lines to recharge themselves; the bird poop on our car is actually a tracking device. For more of the Birds Aren’t Real mischief, check out their intentionally semi-literate website and watch the movement’s sly videos.
These young activists are “fighting lunacy with lunacy.” It’s a strategy of holding a mirror up to someone’s actions, rather than trying to shout them down or explain their mistakes. Here are some of McIndoe’s thoughts on this from a December article in the New York Times:
“Birds Aren’t Real is not a shallow satire of conspiracies from the outside. It is from the deep inside,” he said. “A lot of people in our generation feel the lunacy in all this, and Birds Aren’t Real has been a way for people to process that.”
“Everything we’ve done with Birds Aren’t Real is made to make sure it doesn’t tip into where it could have a negative end result on the world,” he said. “It’s a safe space for people to come together and process the conspiracy takeover of America. It’s a way to laugh at the madness rather than be overcome by it.”
“I have a lot of excitement for what the future of this could be as an actual force for good,” he said. “Yes, we have been intentionally spreading misinformation for the past four years, but it’s with a purpose. It’s about holding up a mirror to America in the internet age.”
One activist noted in the Times piece that the work is about community and comfort too: “In a uniquely bleak time to come of age, it doesn’t hurt to have something to laugh about together.” It is, in a word, therapeutic. And the Guardian article ends with a remarkably beautiful insight on that subject from McIndoe about how Birds Aren’t Real became a way for young people to process their burning world:
We talk about it like an igloo. Making a shelter out of the same thing that’s posing the threat. Take the materials of what is around us, build something with them, be safe in there together, and laugh.
This metaphor got my attention. I have struggled in an Antarctic blizzard to build a snow shelter even as gale-force winds chiseled at my face and blew the snow from my shovel. A few hours later, the folks I was with were all cheerfully making dinner and enjoying each other’s company even as the storm continued to rage outside.
If we take the absurdity of the life we’re given – one where birds are still real but threatened with extinction merely because we can’t control the fossil fuel industry – and make our own absurdity, or at least a comfortable bunker, we’ve started to control the narrative in a way that brings a little peace amid the madness.
As with the Anthropocene, the prospects for American hard-right-leaning conspiracy thinking are better than they should be and thus daunting for society at large. McIndoe hopes that Birds Aren’t Real continues to be a comfort to his generation as the battle rages. “I would love Birds Aren’t Real to continue to be a space to process the badness. I don’t think the madness is going to necessarily end. I think the lunacy is going to become more intense.”
Birds Aren’t Real has its limits, of course. Absurdities and mischief-makers may successfully puncture the craziness of the conspiracy-minded, but they don’t often pass legislation or bring corporate polluters to heel. Activism more often tears down than builds. The brilliant Dada art movement was the first to suggest that art could change society. It grew out of a horror at what European nations created in WWI and aimed, through strange and aggressive art, to tear down social norms, but only managed to inspire future art movements. The Surrealists in particular learned from the Dadaists and aimed to change human consciousness by making art which originated in the unconscious, but by the late 20th century had mainly succeeded in getting its most popular images printed on posters like the one that Peter McIndoe ripped off the wall.
So, on this Earth Day, as the Anthropocene picks up speed and the daily news cycle nonchalantly blends headlines about house fires and the Amazon rainforest converting to savannah, what kinds of igloos can we make for ourselves?
There’s humor, wherever you find it. I’ve seen a cartoon with Mrs. Claus telling Santa, as they float on a tiny remnant of sea ice with drowned reindeer around them, “I told you giving coal to the bad kids was gonna backfire.” If you’re into late night comedy, you might like Stephen Colbert and Al Gore trading cheesy “hot” climate change pick-up lines, or Jimmy Kimmel turning the 2018 IPCC report into a going-out-of-business commercial for the Earth:
Everything must go! 50% of all nocturnal animals, insects, reptiles and amphibians … priced to sell before we live in hell. But you must act fast because planet Earth is over soon. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.
And then there’s this from the Climate Ad Project:
There’s optimism, but we have to invest in optimism rather than simply rely on it. Reliance is a crutch. Investment, by its nature, carries risk in a search for higher reward. Investment requires knowledge; the more the better. As I think is clear from my writing, I’m a fan of an honest, often blunt assessment of the world we’ve diminished and continue to diminish, which is why you’ll hear about mammal biomass and ocean acidification, even when it’s been a long day and you don’t want to hear it. It’s crucial, I think, to be reminded often of the stakes and the odds of the Anthropocene even as we focus on solutions. If you listen to the speeches and interviews with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, he doesn’t shy away from the dark truths about the deaths, the destruction, and the likelihood of much worse to come even as he seeks help to reduce the damage from the malevolent devastation of his country.
In my case, the steady litany of harms and troubles can sound like pessimism, but what I’m after is an optimism rooted in understanding. We forget that to “understand” is a metaphor about standing among things (not literally beneath) in order to better discern them.
Pure pessimism in the Anthropocene is, on a personal level, all reward (complacency) and no risk. But in the real world we all inhabit, pessimism is all risk (the future of life on Earth) and no reward. Nothing will change the trajectory we’re on except us. This is why, as I’ve noted before, many of my favorite people are optimistic pessimists; that is, they have no illusions about the dark realities but they still laugh and care and get good things done.
There’s the comfort of work, the work that gives you meaning as you try to reduce the damage and build a better world. Whether it’s carrying a Birds Aren’t Real sign, nurturing species or protecting habitats, writing letters to pass legislation, protesting or volunteering for climate justice, you’ll find community for your igloo.
Remember that the vast majority of humans want what you want: a safe, healthy, sustainable society woven into a vibrant community of plants and other animals. Reducing the impacts of the Anthropocene is an uphill battle, but the battle is against an entrenched minority with powerful weapons. One of those weapons is a set of very successful disinformation campaigns that keep the majority distracted and divided; another is an increasing control of the electoral process. These are daunting, but a minority is still a minority.
And, finally, there’s love and/or compassion for the natural world. Remember the title of Barry Lopez’s upcoming final book, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. I don’t think he had in mind the notion that we would have no fear, but that we should live with a courage emanating from an acknowledgement of our fears. Just because the world is burning doesn’t mean we should love it any less. Instead, we should love it more in order to protect what remains. We fear, therefore we embrace, therefore we act.
It’s Earth Day again. This blue dot is a miracle. Let’s do what we can to become caretakers rather than mere takers.
And don’t forget to care for the birds. In the Anthropocene, they’re arguably more real than we are.
Thanks for sticking with me.
In curated Anthropocene news:
From the Times, a really exciting, hopeful story of ecological restoration on remote South Georgia island in the Southern Ocean.
Also from the Times, we should all create a wasp-friendly garden. Why? Because we misunderstand them, because we need them (to pollinate and control pests), and because they’re amazing.
From Mother Jones: Should we be sacrificing indigenous land in pursuit of metals that will facilitate the “green” revolution? The courts and the Biden administration are about to decide the fate of sacred Apache land that is threatened with a massive open pit copper mine.
From Vox, the future, or lack thereof, for gas stations.
Two Guardian articles: Billions of nurdles, the plastic beads used as source material in most plastic manufacturing, are polluting the ocean. They should be treated as a dangerous toxic substance and regulated as such in shipping.
The Frontline investigative series on PBS is running a three-part series on how the Big Oil companies have stymied work on climate change for decades.
