The scientists are crying.
I just watched Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, David Attenborough’s newly released Netflix documentary, featuring scientist Johan Rockström warning of planetary boundaries affected by climate change. Earth system processes have maintained a precious balance for 11,650 cal years during the Holocene; nurturing an explosion of life on our planet, but human impact has launched us into a dangerous warming trend that must be addressed immediately to avoid crossing irreversible tipping points.
Since I was young, the environment and nature have been my focus and they continue to inform my work. About 20 years ago, I read Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers, a riveting book detailing how global warming would unfold over the next century, its deepening effects on natural cycles, and what must be done to avert a potentially unsurvivable future of extreme weather and searing temperatures. We live on a small island in the Chesapeake Bay on the frontline of climate change. For the last decade, I have noted clear changes in sea level rise as saltwater encroachment kills trees, makes our well water unusable, and frequently floods the road out across the marsh to our home. I have seen Flannery’s predictions become reality.
Some years ago, I attended a lecture by Paul Hawken, the author of Drawdown, a book detailing solutions and pathways of action based in a global movement of scientists, scholars and legislators. I was honored to speak with him afterward to ask how I might use my skills as an author/illustrator to contribute to positive environmental change. I wanted to empower anyone, not just those in the trenches to join the fight. While top-down legislation is very important, history shows agreements will be slow in coming at best. Our leaders are in office for a short time and will always be focused on short-term issues and quick gratification. Might corporations care enough to self regulate and invent earth friendly products? Some do. Most won’t. A toxic me-first attitude that slyly justifies dirty practices to make a buck undermines responsible policies.
I became convinced that bottom-up action – a movement of one, each of us and all of us together – could lead to a tsunami of change for the better. My book, Come Together, is my personal movement of one, an engaging handbook designed to inspire others to launch movements of their own. It includes easy proactive steps to retool daily actions, based on principles of civility, integrity, and an invigorating love for our earth.
“When one of us retools their lifestyle to live mindfully for the future, those decisions may hit a switch in the small circle of people that surround you. Small actions, paired with consistent focus to avoid single-use plastics, question polar level AC in grocery stores or over-consumption of purchases to reduce piles of product piling up at the landfill, are valuable steps forward. You, gentle warrior, you are the decider of your next green action.”
This is the common goal that can unite all people on earth, beyond differences in politics, race, religion, culture or disbelief, to address our impact on earth now. The scientist’s calculations note to avoid overstepping disastrous tipping points we need to get to zero fossil fuel use before 2030. What are we waiting for?
Dana Simson’s recommendations for further reading:
The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
An international best seller embraced and endorsed by policy makers, scientists, writers and energy industry executives from around the world, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers contributed in bringing the topic of global warming to national prominence. For the first time, a scientist provided an accessible and comprehensive account of the history, current status, and future impact of climate change, writing what has been acclaimed by reviewers everywhere as the definitive book on global warming.
Drawdown by Paul Hawkin
New York Times bestseller
The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world.
“At this point in time, the Drawdown book is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis.”
AuthorPods also recommends:
The End of Nature by Bill McKibben
McKibben’s groundbreaking 1989 work is credited with being the first book to sound the alarm about the perils of climate change. “More than simply a handbook for survival or a doomsday catalog of scientific prediction, this classic, soulful lament on Nature is required reading for nature enthusiasts, activists, and concerned citizens alike.”
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, The Sixth Extinction posits that Earth is in the midst of a sixth man-made mass extinction. Kolbert traces prior mass extinction events and draws parallels between humanity’s modern day impact on our planet’s ecosphere. “Right now,” she writes, “we are deciding, without quite meaning to, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will forever be closed. No other creature has ever managed this, and it will, unfortunately, be our most enduring legacy.”
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Powers’ extraordinary work of “climate fiction” was the winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. The novel is a multigenerational epic that follows nine characters, each determined to save ancient trees from destruction. “There is a world alongside ours–vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.”
Guest blogger Dana Simson is an author, illustrator, life-long environmentalist and climate change activist. Her most recent book, Come Together, was published by Green Writers Press in 2021. She is available for author events, podcasts and interviews. Visit her online at danasimson.com.
