Being a Pessimist in the Anthropocene.

                Over the last week, the idea of being an optimist or pessimist about the Anthropocene was a big debate that continued in my mind for many days after being introduced. After reading “The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?”  We discussed in class what three choices would most likely happen to the world: business-as-usual, mitigation, or geo-engineering options. 
Suddenly I found myself identifying as a pessimist thinking there was no way global society would go beyond business-as-usual.  I felt guilty, to be honest, I had picked this major to do something, to change the minds of people and ultimately their lives.  But there I was, assuming the minds of people all over the world could not be changed.  There are many things about this problem that is still a constant debate in my own mind.  I want to change the world, I want the world to change the world, but I know how impossible it is to change the minds of people. 

                The idea that changing people’s mind is impossible comes for a comment made in my class, which was along the lines of: “if we can’t give humans basic rights, then how can we save the world?”  I’m not going to advocate one way or another about human rights, though my thoughts on that are pretty standard: they’re human, who cares what their skin color is, and who they love, or what gender they are?  Basically, we are all human and we deserve the same rights across the board.  Though human rights is not the basis for this blog, it just reinforces the thought that it’s impossible to make people feel something they are not passionate about.  It’s hard to make people in Kansas feel something about coral reefs being thousands of miles away from the nearest shore line.  It’s the same way trying to make people by the equator feel something about glacier ice caps.  The problems seem a little farfetched because we cannot visibly see them happening every day, but that does not belittle the fact they are happening every day. 

                I remember campaigns for many things trying to get the sympathies of people for global warming.  There was one that was of a polar bear standing on a small floating pie of ice, much like this: 

The idea behind it was simple: “don’t you want your grandchildren to be able to see polar bears?”  At first it seemed silly to me, I was a teenager, and I could hardly imagine being married, yet alone picturing having kids that have kids.  Most others had the same reaction that I did; it wasn’t going to happen for a very long time, so why should we worry about it now?  Over many decades, the problem has been growing, and I see that continuing, continually putting it off for the next generation to deal with.  That’s the problem with this generation I live in, and I’ll admit I’m a victim of it as well.  The idea of instant gratification.  We live in a world of twitter, Facebook, where posting is instant for all of your friends and family to see.  Last night was the Oscars, and I was unable to watch the end of it.  I was anxiously refreshing twitter to see who had won best picture, getting annoyed that no one had posted anything.  There is no waiting for anything anymore.  We know the second a scandal with a celebrity is about to begin; we can’t watch a television show without reading spoilers online before the show has even aired.  There are a lot of options for us to enter the stage of mitigation, many brilliant minds dedicate their time to begin to fix this problem with geo-engineering solutions.  But the problem still remains: this is an effort that is going to happen every single day that we devote our time and energy to consciously.  But our world is too focused on the now to even begin to care about other things besides ourselves. 

                I wanted to be an optimist when it comes to the Anthropocene, and was saddened when I came to realize I was a pessimist.  And that’s the thing, we need to begin to shift our mindset.  As I had this idea fester in my mind, I realized that I needed to begin to shift my mindset to begin with.  Once you begin to change, that is the spark.  And suddenly when your passions are involved in everything you do, that spark becomes a wildfire, destroying the old thinking of everyone and everything in its path.