There’s just something about watching the slow painful death of a massive ecosystem to make you pessimistic about the future of our species. If a higher power was looking to send a message to the human race about its dependence on fossil fuels, an anvil to the head couldn’t be much clearer. But I wonder, will it change anything?

Over the weekend, I was reading my son Dr. Suess’ The Lorax. I got to this part, which I have always loved, and could hardly keep reading:

And all that the Lorax left here in this mess

was a small pile of rocks, with one word…

“UNLESS.”

Whatever that meant, well, I just couldn’t guess.

That was long, long ago.

But each day since that day

I’ve sat here and worried

and worried away.

Through the years, while my buildings

have fallen apart,

I’ve worried about it

with all of my heart.

“But now,” says the Once-ler,

“Now that you’re here,

the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.

UNLESS someone like you

cares a whole awful lot,

nothing is going to get better.

It’s not.

This has always made me feel optimistic about our potential as individuals to affect meaningful change through collective consciousness and action. But this book was written in 1971. I was 1! Forty years later, the bottom line is this: not enough people have cared a whole awful lot because nothing has gotten better.

It hasn’t.

It’s gotten worse.

And it fills me with dread and worry about the world we will leave our children. I have visions of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, in which father and son scramble for survival in the decimated landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. At my most pessimistic, I can almost see the fatalistic appeal of the argument, made by Princeton philosophy professor Peter Singer in The New York Times, that perhaps we should just stop reproducing:

Most thoughtful people are extremely concerned about climate change. Some stop eating meat, or flying abroad on vacation, in order to reduce their carbon footprint. But the people who will be most severely harmed by climate change have not yet been conceived. If there were to be no future generations, there would be much less for us to feel to guilty about.

So why don’t we make ourselves the Last Generation on Earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!

But small things still give me hope (perhaps irrationally so). The faces of my children. And movements like this: www.360.org. I heard founder Bill McKibben speak on Alternative Radio and found it profoundly inspiring to hear about participation in the movement from every remote corner of our planet.

The goal of the group was get world leaders at last December’s climate summit in Copenhagen to agree to lower the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million, which scientists say is the safe upper limit.

They failed.

But they’re not done trying. On Oct. 10, 350.org is organizing a Global Work Party. This is McKibben’s message:

In every corner of the world we hope communities will put up solar panels, insulate homes, erect windmills, plant trees, paint bikepaths, launch or harvest local gardens. We’ll make sure the world sees this huge day of effort — and we’ll use it to send a simple message to our leaders: “We’re working — what about you? If we can cover the roof of the school with solar panels, surely you can pass the legislation or sign the treaty that will spread our work everywhere, and confront the climate crisis in time.

Go to http://www.350.org/oct10 to learn more.

For our children, we must do something.

If we don’t, nothing is going to get better.

It’s not.

Tags: Lorax, oil spill, the environment

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