As the year winds down and we prepare to celebrate our winter holidays, I wonder what 2023 will bring us.
If I were to write a “resolution wish list,” it would include an end to the senseless war in Ukraine, along with a unified global strategy to arrest climate change and implement an immediate program of correction to heal our planet and preserve it for future generations. Some are already claiming it’s too late to reverse course. As Muriel Ellis wrote in her poem that I shared in the last post, “time won’t wait.”
I’m currently reading All We Can Save – Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis – a compilation of essays by dozens of diverse women in the fields of science, journalism, law, education, activism, design, and other areas who are at the forefront of the climate movement, who share their ideas for how society can be rapidly and fundamentally restructured. Interspersed with the essays are insightful poems and quotations.
It’s a fascinating read, from the historical perspective offered by many of the writers to the revelation of some disturbing facts I would otherwise have known nothing about. For me, it’s also an introduction to a new language with terms such as “extractive economy.” As the editors, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson say in their opening pages, “As we put it together, intermixing essays with poetry and art, as all these voices became a chorus, this book also became a balm and a guide for the immense emotional complexity of knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future.”
Two personal disclaimers: 1) I haven’t yet finished the book, but I’m finding it so enlightening and inspiring that I’m compelled to recommend it. So much thoughtful information is offered in each essay, I need time to absorb it before reading the next, so I’m taking it slow. 2) I didn’t choose this book for myself. Usually, if I’m browsing in a bookstore, I’m looking for an escape through fiction. Thankfully, it was a gift. And a much-needed wake-up call.
Brenda Bellinger 