You don't need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough.
~Joanna Macy

Making the Invisible Visible-
Seeing Ourselves as Erupting Volcanoes

Andri Snær Magnason, one of Iceland’s most celebrated authors, wrote A letter to the future, as eulogy to the Okjökull glacier, the first glacier to disappear in Iceland in the summer of 2019. He wrote:

Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years, all of our glaciers are expected to follow the same path.
This monument acknowledges that we know it's happening and what we needs to be done.
Only you know if we did it.

August 2019
415ppm CO2

In his latest book titled On Time and Water, which just got translated into English and published in the USA and Canada this past month, Magnason makes the point that now that scientists have talked loud and clear about the urgent need to reduce the world’s CO2 emissions for decades without much success, it’s time for poets and storytellers to intervene. I was particularly struck by his use of the volcano as a metaphor. Being an Icelander, he is in a good position to talk about glaciers and volcanoes.

Surprising as it may sound, the eruption of a volcano could actually be an environmental beneficial event. How so? Well, the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland stopped European air traffic for 6 days. The volcano erupting grounded many planes, resulting into a decrease of more than 200,000 tons of CO2 per day, despite the fact that the volcano itself emitted 150,000 tons daily. (The European Aviation is emitting about 344,109 tons per day. See source).

So if, as Andri Snær Magnason suggests, we were to measure our worldwide daily CO2 emissions (100 million tons) in numbers of volcanoes eruptions (one volcano eruption = 150,000 tons), we would get the number 666: in other words, the daily emissions of the earth's inhabitants are like 666 eruptions of that Icelandic volcano whose name I can't pronounce, day and night, all year around. Six hundred sixty six, daily, every day. If you have ever witnessed or seen pictures of a volcano erupting, you start to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem that we are creating.

To continue to put numbers in perspective: as inhabitants of this Earth in this century, and, for those of us who are residents of North America, our annual carbon footprint is in the range of 17 to 20 tons of GHG emission in average (and by the way, about 4 times the world’s average). We are all very tiny volcanoes, but there are almost 8 billion of us, so our daily eruptions do add up, and they show up in the way we lead our daily lives: how we work, drive, shop, travel, cook, eat and keep our bodies at a comfortable temperature. While our individual actions matter, climate change is also a collective action problem as my friend and colleague Adam Lerner writes in issue Twenty Two Conversational Silence of The Understory, his series of long-form essays on the topic of the climate engagement. (And on this controversial topic of personal action vs. systemic change, I highly recommend that you listen to: Is my carbon footprint BS? an episode of How to Save a Planet podcast.)

Again, Andri Snær Magnason:

We are the eruption, but we don't see the flames when we look in the mirror. Everything is so well designed, so invisible.

So it’s easy to ignore the problem. Our job is to make the invisible eruption visible. Climate action starts within. How big are your invisible flames? How much of a volcano are you? What actions are you taking to extinguish or diminish the fires that you are part of in your personal or professional life? What systemic changes are you instigating in your work place or community? Which conversations are you having to make the invisible visible?

I want to end here with some additional words from another poet, Jane Hirshfield. They are extracted from the first poem Let Them Not Say of her latest book of poetry Ledger:

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.

Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.

Warmly,

Anne-Marie
May 10, 2021 (420.01 ppm CO2)

Poem: Let Them Not Say by Jane Hirshfield

THE NATURE SUMMIT
starts tomorrow May 11

What important lessons does nature have to teach us?
How do we connect with the healing power of the natural world?
How do we love the Earth, draw inspiration from its beauty and protect it in times of crisis? 

Join renowned authors, scientists, meditation teachers, artists, environmentalists, activists, indigenous elders and more...

Paul Hawken, Jane Hirshfield, Dr. Dan Siegel, Spring Washam, Rick Hanson, David Abram, Chip Conley, Joan Halifax, Dacher Keltner, Michael Yellow Bird, Kriste Peoples, Lynne Twist, and many others.

Co-hosted by my Awake In the Wild teacher, Mark Coleman.

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