Rethinking Priorities: Climate, Economics, and Identity
Examining the Intersection of Climate Action, Economic Realities, and the Need for Critical Reassessment
The Takeaway
I’m cutting to the chase and putting my conclusions at the beginning of this week’s newsletter. The two takeaways:
Continually reassess long-standing beliefs and traditions, no matter how radical. When a belief or identity becomes so ingrained that questioning it is unfathomable, it is likely time to reevaluate.
Look outward and examine the mismatches between the liberty you’ve benefited from and how this can translate into fulfilling your duties as a citizen.
To everything -- a season, and a time to every delight under the heavens:
…A time to slay, And a time to heal, A time to break down, And a time to build up…
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (Young’s Literal Translation)
A Time to Slay
When hunting a mountain, my mind is forced to generate new thought since the distractions of people and screens are absent. I repeat serendipitous phrases in my head, often the same phrase the entire day.
Last week, the phrase was: “A time to slay.” I first heard this passage at a funeral, and the sentiment made sense while I was hunting. But through the day’s progression, my attention gravitated toward the broader meaning of there being a season for everything. By 11 AM and six miles of hiking, I decided the purpose of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is to be open to reassessment; that, yes, there is a time for everything, but knowing when is the right time… that is the tricky part.
A purpose…a meaning…an identity
In this meditative exercise on the side of a mountain, I decided to apply this prism of critical thinking to climate change, often a lodestar of left-leaning political groups. Accelerated climate change is a fact we can witness; for instance, rain is more frequent in places where it used to snow consistently. Climate change is a massive, pressing, and critical issue facing all of humanity. As a thought exercise, let’s say we could “solve” climate change– meet all targets so temperatures stabilize. What would we do?
I hypothesize that because climate change is such a complicated and growingly insurmountable problem due to the requirement to cooperate globally, some groups have settled upon it as their chief identifier. This is because it will likely never be “solved.” Therefore, one’s identity with this cause can remain strong, intact, unwavering, and never satisfied.
Uncertainty of the Seasons
Humans work to remove the variability and uncertainty of the seasons. Spring, summer, fall, and winter bring challenges that we remedy with gutters, air conditioning, and garages. Change is constant, and we’ve worked to manage seasonality, yet we’re simultaneously wary of the new dynamics of accelerated climate change.
But isn’t this more of the same? A new set of seasons that provide a focus and challenge for us humans? With technological developments, these may simply be a recalibrated existence; yesteryear’s snow shovel (an invention to move snow) is today’s “cloud seeding” or heat pump technology. Won’t humans adapt, using our accelerated technological development (e.g., AI, quantum computing) to address accelerated climate changes?
Like many thorny contemporary issues, it is difficult to distinguish between material reality, politics, tradition, and psychology.
Avoiding the Pain
Climate change as a catchall avoids the complex problems associated with economics. Going back to my question, if we could snap our fingers and “solve” climate change, we’d still have rampant economic development issues and human and environmental exploitation—the primary causes of human suffering. Should these not be our immediate focus?
China and India are frequently blamed for their high emissions. This hinders global efforts at reducing emissions. Growing economically, however, is their modus operandi; many people within both countries have drawn the short straw in terms of economic opportunity (compared to the US, where I grew up).
Within America, why should someone working multiple jobs as a single parent care about “climate change”? Is it because John Forbes Kerry, who just flew back from Davos on a private jet, told them to?
An idea like climate change doesn’t matter when you can’t meet your basic needs. And you, therefore, prioritize getting ahead, regardless of the impact on climate.
When we focus on economics, trade, and supply chains, we enter a world of concrete numbers we can use to compare. Average pay, wages, debt, and life expectancy are measurable, far more so than climate models.
Reevaluate Beliefs
Only by reevaluating our goals, long-standing beliefs, and assumptions do we know what to do now; otherwise, we’re on autopilot of the mind, never questioning, only reinforcing the familiar, inward-looking.
Marcus Tullius Cicero critiqued the politicians of the Republic who had also become inward-looking, self-obsessed with personal gain, while the citizens suffered:
“For Cicero…the word piscinarii represented a class of patricians who had abandoned their aristocratic obligations in favor of their aristocratic pleasures, all while the Republic he so deeply loved fell into chaos. He gently attacked his contemporaries — even friends — whom he perceived to have become more interested in their fish than in the affairs of state at a critical juncture.”
- Fishponds and Fighters, by
There is a time to slay and heal, plant and harvest, and a time to reassess, which requires an openness and discipline of the mind. Is preoccupation with climate change a form of aristocratic pleasure in that we can be concerned about it as a cause, allowing us to ignore long-standing poverty that parts of the world cannot escape, regardless of the success or failure of global climate agreements? In this sense, caring about climate costs us nothing; politicians know this: talk is cheap.
Additional Reading:
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’s What Then newsletter for thought-provoking writing on Stoic thought.
the single parent is a good example, I think people have a cognitive load they can handle up to a certain point and after that they can't really "care" about anything else in the same way