Livin’ In The Crumble-Sprawl
“The world will not be without joy…unless we let it choose to go there.”
It’s a handful of white guys+folks talking about political theory & climate change and being snarky, I know. That’s a lot of the language I was raised and came of age in though, and, despite not having read the book yet (and in all likelihood not going to make the time to do so), it resonates. I’m hearing of and seeking other sources of thought on these topics, but this jumped out at me. Not just because I think Robert Evans and the folks he works with really do their homework on the issues at hand, and are fairly open about where they stand as they present them. No one said it would be easy, but knowing he and others are looking for hope and trying to spread it, that the future isn’t inked and just waiting to spill, means plenty to me.
Because I also fight not to be black-pilled or doomer-pilled, basically every day, despite wanting and knowing that Climate X is still possible. And since I don’t have Twitter, and am using Facebook selectively, and Medium isn’t quite the regular or monetizable forum I imagined when I was building my home server (maybe someday), I have to settle for redirecting these messages, with some context, with a candle of hope that others will Get It.
These days, strapping an extra canister of high-octane to the outside of my computerized suburban-assault vehicle, I struggle to imagine escaping from the Sprawl. Feeling the cognitive dissonance of being part of the problem, part of the solution, and unsettled between both. A cell in Leviathan, maybe, or a photochemical catalyst of Climate X.
But with my partner, I can talk about ‘climate hygge’, of planting sustenance crops in Radio Flyer wagons for when our lease runs out and we have to relocate, or in gyro-stabilized AI+Bluetooth networked semi-autonomous hydroponic trailers for when the healthy soil runs out. In the meantime, I can pull weeds from a garden with my co-workers, so that schoolchildren can learn the joy of growing things, be it grape or squash or carrots or anything alive and green, really.
It is happening here. I’ve told you about the threat of creeping, state-enabled fascism, and I’ve told you some reasons why I’m a socialist. But I’m not a Climate Mao-ist — honestly, I don’t think The Revolution™ will ever come to pass. Instead, many of us live in The Sprawl, and some of us reading this are entering The Crumbles. Islands of hypocritical carbon-scolding and seemingly-endless consumption, versus grubby, dirty, productive, and also hypocritical Hobbesian struggle.
But a better world is possible. “More things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” as a bard once put it, or in a stereotypically more-modern, militaristic and masculine sense I’ve cited before:
“You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”
So let’s imagine. Let’s test. Let’s try, and fail, and hold each other through the heartache of what’s ‘baked in’ to our emissions, and what can be redeemed and borne and created that we haven’t even imagined it. Our survival, and more than that, our joy depends on it.
