Recently I watched two interviews with climate scientists discussing the heat waves that have stunned Europe this summer, as well as other parts of the world. Both said, in effect, “we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” These events are not anomalies, they said, but only an introduction to new weather norms that will only get worse, much worse.

It was obvious that both speakers wanted to be as blunt as possible. They were done with pulling their punches. And both identified the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels as the culprit. One of them documented that rise from prehistoric times, where it remained remarkably stable, to modern industrialization when it skyrocketed and continues to rise. Further, he said that there is no gradual or half-way measure available to remedy the situation. Hydrocarbon burning must be drastically cut now to begin reversing our climate’s deterioration.

Of course, there is no prospect of that happening. Relative to power demands, advances in renewable energy and energy efficiency are only making a dent in the world’s fossil fuel dependency (which astonishingly are being reversed in this country). The reasons are simple but not ones we want to recognize.

Industry, with its focus on short-term profits, has no incentive to seriously invest in alternative energy sources. This will only happen if it’s directed to by government authorities. But as is now obvious, industry’s owners and economic elites have gained a near stranglehold on the political process, both from enormous campaign contributions and from control of the media. As former president Jimmy Carter declared over ten years ago, because of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling the United States is now “just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president.”

And while the processes have varied, much the same development has occurred throughout the Western democracies. Unsurprisingly then, the less profit-driven economy of China has made the greatest strides in moving away from carbon fuel dependency. Yet even if all industrial countries followed China’s example, carbon use still wouldn’t decline nearly enough to avert climate disaster.

It is simply a fact that modern industrial economies depend on fossil carbon fuel. Some organizations have touted this fact to try to diminish the value of alternative energy sources. They’re right: they won’t be enough to maintain our industrial culture as we’ve known it. What these fossil fuel proponents won’t acknowledge is that, based on their own conclusions, the only alternative then is a dramatic change in our modern economy and the lifestyle it supports.

But that’s not happening spontaneously or voluntarily, and it’s not going to happen nearly fast enough. Reusing and recycling, switching to LED bulbs and Low-E glass, biking or driving hybrid cars are all steps in the right direction, but they are baby steps on a thousand-mile journey. Life as we know it has to change, yet we’ve hardly begun to imagine what that would look like or how we will ever go about making such change happen.

Since we will not make those changes on our own, the earth’s changing climate will make them for us. The heat waves, storms, fires, floods, droughts, water shortages, and crop failures that are now regular news stories will become the reality we all live with.

For some time, people concerned about the environment have focused on the question, “What can we do to live more responsibly?” That’s not irrelevant or without value, but the more immediate question we increasingly will face is, “How do I live as the climate crisis unfolds?” How do we live with purpose and hope as we experience the destabilizing consequences of climate change? How do we live in community and show compassion toward our neighbors in distress?

I’ve long thought that the fascination with Titanic is that many see it as a metaphor for the vague sense of doom that has been hanging over modern Western culture. It was viewed that way in retrospect when the catastrophe of World War I broke out a little over two years later, the war everyone was convinced would never happen. At the end of the 1958 film A Night to Remember, a surviving officer in a lifeboat reflects on the hype about the ship and the disastrous reality, “We were so sure….”

The 1997 blockbuster movie embodies that experience for our time. Perhaps the most telling scene occurs right after the iceberg collision as those in charge try to comprehend what has happened. When the ship’s architect unrolls the blueprints to demonstrate that Titanic will “founder”, the company representative protests, “But she’s unsinkable!” The wilting response is, “She’s made of iron, sir. I assure you she can, and she will.” And representing all those looking for a technological way out, the captain exclaims, “But what about the pumps!?” The unsatisfactory reply is, “They buy you time, but minutes only.” The sobering faces of those gathered around show the truth gradually sinking in.

As the various Titanic films unwind, the drama is not the ship sinking, despite the tension it creates. Rather, it is the stories of how passengers and crew all face the inevitable disaster with the knowledge that some will survive but not all, not even most. It’s the struggle of a thousand moral and ethical challenges all at once.

One detail the movies highlight is the playing of the ship’s orchestra musicians nearly to the end. Even in tragedy there is a need for beauty. I thought of them after reading a post by Australian blogger, Caitlin Johnstone. I have previously quoted her and her blunt, no-nonsense assessment of the state of the world. This post takes a different turn and is titled, “There Is Beauty Everywhere. Even In Dystopia. Even In Armageddon.”

One point I will always adamantly insist on is that it’s entirely possible to live a joyful and exuberant life in the midst of this abusive dystopia.

There’s a pervasive, unexamined notion throughout revolutionary politics that there’s some kind of nobility in being miserable. If it isn’t seen as noble, it’s at least seen as rational, because everything is so unjust and unhealthy….

But that’s rubbish. Nobody is helped by your misery. By depriving yourself of joy, you are only depriving the world of that much joy. Being more joyful makes you more energized, more helpful, and more useful to the cause, and it brings joy to everyone around you.

The perspective Johnstone takes here is very much like that of Jesus. Many want to portray Jesus as a kind of revolutionary or, at least, a guide to revolutionaries wanting to take down an oppressive system. I don’t think he was either of those things. Jesus knew very well how oppressive his society was and probably suspected some cataclysm was coming (as it did a generation later).

Rather, the wisdom Jesus taught was how to live in an unjust and suffering world which no one had realistic prospects of changing. We see this in the Beatitudes, his teaching about worry amidst the beauty of the lilies, and his countless admonishments to treat one another fairly and with compassion. However awful society has become, the world is still beautiful and life is still good, Jesus insists. Don’t be dragged down by following the misguided values of the rich and powerful. They are blind guides.

This is why it is so important to be honest about this time in which we live. Otherwise, we are yanked this way and that by political soap opera, by the faux dramas of celebrities and elites, false messiahs, and the scapegoating of an ever-changing list of “problem people.” All this keeps us in a whirl of unreality, as Johnstone says in another related essay, “We All Know This Civilization Is Doomed, But They Keep Telling Us Everything’s Normal” (she likes long titles).

Life in the 2020s comes with so much dissonance and dysphoria because everyone knows this civilization is doomed, but it’s not being acknowledged by any of our mainstream institutions. 

We can all see everything getting worse and worse before our eyes in real time, but our government officials don’t talk about it. Our mass media outlets don’t report on it. Our education systems don’t recognize it. There’s a giant elephant in the room with us at all times, and normal people are acutely aware of it, but the talking heads keep speaking as though everything’s going to keep ticking along normally into the foreseeable future….

We all know we’re in a completely unsustainable situation. We all know we are riding a bus with disintegrating wheels.

But it doesn’t get acknowledged by anyone at the top. The news reports are still about the latest celebrity gossip and whether the economy arrow is pointing up or down. The movies and shows are still about wacky and witty characters for whom capitalism is working perfectly fine. The politicians are still talking about culture war issues and the Evil Dictator of the Day….

I’m not saying we’re all going to die, I’m just saying this civilization as it presently exists cannot possibly be sustained. Immensely drastic changes are coming up around the bend whether we like it or not, either by a deliberate transformation or by some cataclysmic event occurring against our will. 

Life in the 2020s feels so spiritually dissonant because we all know this is the case, but all the sources we’ve been trained to look to for information and context are acting like everything’s perfectly fine. They’re painting a cheery picture over reality while every normal person is staring at the giant black cracks that keep appearing in the paint job.

Here, of course, Johnstone is sounding very much like an Old Testament prophet. Their job was not so much to predict the future as to describe truthfully the present time, which most wanted to pretend was something else. In other words, the elephant in the room, as Johnstone says. And this is where the prophets and mystics come together because both are dedicated to seeing life and the world as they truly are. This is what “waking up” is actually about—clearing our heads of the brain fog of cultural and self-delusion to genuinely live in the present moment.

But waking up, as Jesus said, is also learning to see the beauty of life and the world, for they are often hidden in plain sight. This takes practice, as Johnstone says, returning in conclusion to her earlier essay (and I encourage you to read them both).

Being joyful is a skill, and like any other skill it takes practice. But it’s something we all have access to if we want it.

Being joyful doesn’t entail hiding from the misery of the world or compartmentalizing away from the reality of what’s happening; quite the opposite, in fact. It entails opening yourself all the way up to what’s happening in each moment and feeling it all with the heart of a poet. It means becoming more sensitive, not less, because a stripped-open sensitivity is where ubiquitous beauty is found….

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that’s false. Beauty is in everything. The failure to see beauty is in the eye of the beholder….

Don’t waste your precious time here missing the beauty of each moment. This is more important now than ever, because we don’t know how long humanity’s adventure on this miraculous blue world will last. Tomorrow has never been guaranteed to any of us, but these days it’s not even guaranteed to our species.

Just keep bringing your attention back to what’s here and now, and keep looking for the beauty in it. I swear to you it’s there….

Learn to do this, and you can live the rest of your life knowing that even if it all comes crashing down one day, at least you’ll know you tried your very best to make sure you didn’t miss the miraculousness of your time here.

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