NOVEMBER 13, 2021 – In despair yesterday evening, I read disturbing articles about the three big issues of our times: climate change, the pandemic, and crass threats of violence in rightwing American political rhetoric. And yes, I pled “guilty as charged” for having broken isolation from “breaking news.” (The relapse was temporary, I assure you.)
ISSUE ONE: Climate change, the proverbial game-changer, not only for our species but for all life aboard the planet. Facing the world is no greater threat than this growing catastrophe, one that exceeds the combined effect of all wars and natural disasters since the dawn of civilization. Yet, like frogs in a pot of water on a stovetop turned to “high,” we dilly-dally about leaping from the pot and lowering the heat. As we learned after the Paris Climate Accords signed in 2016, countries can walk away from pledges as easily as carbon dioxide from our consumption of fossil fuel (traceable by signature-isotopes linked to such release) floats into the atmosphere. If the Republicans take control of Congress in 2022 and You-Know-Who tromps back to the White House, count us out again—we who contribute disproportionately to greenhouse gases. We’ve reached a point where “dilly-dally” is indistinguishable from outright denial of the pot we’re in and the blistering-hot, stovetop plate beneath the pot.
ISSUE TWO: Covid-19 and the world’s continuing fractious, uncoordinated response to it. The virus has tested our systems for responding to a common, apolitical threat posed by a micro-organism, not some distorted human trait or ideology. Our report card reflects an overall FAIL, most ironically, for en masse rejection of a magic wand. This failure doesn’t bode well for effective action against Issue One—for which we lack a vaccination.
ISSUE THREE: the post-polarization of our politics. We’ve gone from “Red vs. Blue” to menacing speech by elected officials to a crazed mob swinging baseball bats at democracy and the common good. An entire major political party continues to pay fealty to a thuggish sociopath.
The water in the stovetop pot isn’t only hot. It’s toxic. Which is why we need to do like frogs and LEAP.
It’s why in the moment of despair yesterday I opened humankind’s grand chest of vast treasures. I settled randomly upon a recording of Gil Shaham performing the Barber Violin Concerto—a hauntingly beautiful gem of the violin repertoire. As I listened, I felt restored. Here was a polished jewel of human effort, one formed in the deep mine of time, now soaring along a lofty arch over human tumult, travail, and tribulation.
Amidst the crises that conspire to define us, we need to act like intelligent frogs wearing jewel-bedecked crowns. We need to leap out of the stovetop pot and onto blossoming lily pads in cooler, calmer waters. We need to remind ourselves of the virtues for which we have boundless capacity. At our best, we’re damn good—far better than our worst and infinitely better than a bunch of . . . toads.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
