Giving Up "Hope" As A Constructive Act

This post is about ecological pessimism, environmental collapse, despair, and other stuff that tends to be hated by optimistic environmentalists.

So a few weeks ago I wrote about coming back to Earth-Based Paganism and how Pagans aren't as environmentally friendly as we think we are.

Something I didn't go into and was considering not going into was this:  I'm actually an ecological pessimist.  I don't believe that doing this stuff is going to "save the planet."  I wasn't always like this.  I used to have an attitude a lot like a liberal environmental activist (what I often mentally call "Lisa Simpson" activists).

Screenshot from "The Simpsons: Tapped Out"

A Lisa Simpson activist is someone who has a very shallow understanding of what is really going on, who makes very surface changes to their lifestyle without fully registering how much ecological damage is not due to their personal choices, and who believes it is possible to grind it to a halt and totally reverse it.  And while I love my Lisa Simpson friends... I am not really among them anymore.

I believe that if the whole "developed" world decided to immediately grind our ecocidal activities to a halt, change the entire structure of our energy system, uproot our agricultural system to totally revamp it, and change all our personal and corporate habits, we might be able to slow or stop climate change and other forms of ecocide that are presently occurring.  The problem is there is zero chance that this will happen.  Absolutely none.  The major factors driving ecocide aren't going to change until it's too late.  Most of the things we do change don't actually make much difference big-picture-wise, and when positive changes are made they're just backfilled with other ecocidal garbage. 

Collectively we're extremely easy to deceive, and it's really easy to just repackage the same bullshit and sell it to us while we think we're super green for it.  And most people either deny that there is a problem to the point where they will do nothing or are barred from making those changes anyway through educational gaps or economic oppression.

Essentially, we're wrapped up in this twine ball of environmental destruction intermixed with capitalism that we really can't get out of.  There's too much money involved, too much comfort involved, too much power involved.  We aren't going to undo it; it's just going to need to die.

There's a major criticism of my thinking that goes around, and many folks I respect a great deal use it, which is that by telling people there "is no hope" we discourage people from making changes needed to push toward a sustainable future.  The reality is I don't actually believe "there is no hope."  I just have a different focus for my hope.  The thing is, I want you all to make positive changes to your lifestyle, but I don't believe these things actually "save the planet."  That's not the goal at all.  Instead, when I try to be more "eco-friendly," this is what I'm doing:

1. I'm trying to reduce the individual suffering done to the other forms of life that call Earth "home."  Even if my actions do not prevent climate change in any significant way, it only takes one plastic straw or one single-use bag or one bottle's worth of microbeads to harm a creature, perhaps even multiple creatures.  By not using these things I at least help those individuals (I'm reminded of the sand dollar story I heard as a child in which a little girl is throwing sand dollars back into the ocean to prevent them from dying, and she is criticized because she isn't actually making a dent in the number of sand dollars dying, but remarks that she made a difference to each one).
2. I'm preparing for our current lifestyles finally being so unsustainable we have to change them anyway.  I want to guide people in a direction that will cushion that fall, and that means teaching them ways of doing things that are more deeply sustainable.  Our excuses for why we aren't obligated to change our ways--a common trope among social justice warrior types who like finding some beautiful social cause for garbage--are going to be useless in the future whether we like it or not, so our dependency on those excuses is going to harm us.  We will need to have these habits and know these skills to build something better when we need to.
3. I'm doing it for spiritual reasons and to make me feel better in a situation where I don't have much power.
4. I'm doing it because it is good for me, and just as all life, I have a self-preservation instinct.  A lot of actions that are more environmentally friendly are also healthier for the people who do them both physically and mentally.
5. If I'm going to have to live through ecological disasters I may as well have fun with it.  Many of these projects and activities are fun for me.  There's no shame in that.

In some respects, I think dropping the type of "hope" people are trying to preserve and accepting that the result we are expecting is not likely to happen can be a very constructive act.  I'm picturing myself as a Lisa Simpson activist in college... and I burnt myself the fuck out, because instead of really looking to the future I was tricking myself into thinking my actions could "save the planet."  When they didn't, and when inevitably things got much worse, I got super fucking depressed and spent quite a few years doing practically nothing at all.

So instead of falling into the ridiculous "save the planet" booby trap, I accept that things are going to go to shit.  I took time to mourn (and occasionally take a little more time to mourn when I need it). And then I look to the future again with a fresh perspective:  Yes, things really are going to shit.  No, we really can't reverse it.  So what can we do about that realistically?

We can prepare.  We can develop good habits.  We can study and build viable, Earth-friendly replacements to the institutions that are going to crash.  And yes, we can do many of the same things we thought were going to save the planet, while understanding those actions through a different, less-greenwashed lens.