JAMAIL: Mourning the Changes that Surround Us

[Oscar]

Mourning the Changes That Surround Us: Readers Speak Out on Climate

[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3196 ... on-climate ]

Monday, 20 July 2015 00:00 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report

EXCERPT:

Environmental Melancholia

While some people who wrote to Truthout about their environmental observations have spoken overtly about their exasperation, frustration and even fear, there is an even deeper emotional current surrounding the issue of climate disruption - and it is affecting all of us, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Regan Rosburg is a professional artist who is finishing her master's thesis that explores the connection between grief, symbolism, environmental melancholia and mania. I was already well acquainted with Rosburg's work, but she contacted me after I put out the call to Truthout readers.

Her perspective on what each of us is witnessing as the planet degrades is thus: "These are the personal mini deaths that, to me, are an entrance point for people to experience their own grief regarding environmental melancholia."

Her thesis, which will be completed and fully online this November, will serve as both artwork and resource for those of us struggling to cope emotionally with the climate crisis, delving into the issue of what planetary death is doing to our psyches.

Rosburg continued: A mini death is a death that is part of the larger ecological collapse story, but is close enough for someone to experience directly (in a way that resembles healthy mourning). For example, someone might see bees disappear from his yard, or she might experience a drought-related forest fire, or flooding. The person is having a direct experience with this death. Furthermore, his processing of the grief for this death is proportional to how much she directly engages her feelings and awareness towards the loss.

Rosburg explained that in contrast, the major deaths we witness, like the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica collapsing,[ http://www.livescience.com/50850-antarc ... psing.html ] or Chris Jordan's photographs of plastic-filled albatross who feed in the open ocean, [ http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midw ... 13%2018x24 ] or even California's record-breaking megadrought, remain "more indirect, abstract and overlapping."

Rosburg sees these "major" deaths as being "too massive for the human mind to fully comprehend," on top of the fact that we are all already desensitized by "a constant stream of small television, radio and social media sound bites, which further depersonalize these stories of massive losses around the world."

Thus, we are left with, according to Rosburg, "no time to grieve; no symbolic ritual [is] in place, and [there is] no body to bury." In other words, there is no real precedent for carrying out this kind of mourning.

"Thus, these notions of collapse are abstracted; they cannot be personalized, nor properly mourned," Rosburg said. "Instead, the recurrent state of un-mournable deaths gives way to environmental melancholia."

A G. Hanlon wrote me from California, and shared several examples of collapsing natural systems around him, including the drought, wildfires and chronically higher temperatures. He ended his email by sharing a deeply personal experience that speaks directly to the concept of "environmental melancholia": Until I read your interview ["Mass Extinction: It's the End of the World as We Know It"] - [ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3166 ... we-know-it ] , I was very much aware of climate change, of threats it posed to living entities ... etc ... but I lacked a sense of its immediacy. After reading it, I looked at an image I had taken of a friend's daughter (16 years of age) participating in a race on July 4 at Mt. Shasta. As she ran past me, she flashed a natural, fabulously beautiful smile. I thought of her future (and others) but hers was deeply personal. I wept uncontrollably for sometime afterwards (10-20 minutes). Shopping today I paid attention to all those unknown people of all ages and asked myself "how can we allow this (extinction) to happen? I lack the words beyond sadness, sorrow ... to express my feelings about these passing. None of those people (and millions and billions like them) deserve a potential fate of a hell on earth in two to three decades and their horrid deaths that will follow.

Rosburg sees the solution, at least emotionally, as allowing ourselves to dive headfirst into the emotions that are elicited each time we witness a mini-death, so as to render ourselves more capable of fathoming the broader collapse that is taking place across the planet.

"If someone can acknowledge the pain and ambivalence that comes with a mini-death, then that person can extend that awareness to the larger ecological collapse," Rosburg said.

Given that the numbers of both mini- and major-ecological deaths are mounting on a daily basis, we would all do well to heed Rosburg's suggestion.

Meanwhile, I want to say thank you to the Truthout community for contributing to this piece with such enthusiasm and insight. The first step to wrestling with the calamity of climate disruption is to acknowledge it. Your observations mark a path forward, toward awareness - and, hopefully, healing.

- - -

Dahr Jamail

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, (Haymarket Books, 2009) [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/160846 ... 1608460959 ] , and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, (Haymarket Books, 2007) [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193185 ... 1931859612 ] .

Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.

His third book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with William Rivers Pitt, [ http://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction- ... B00ML3KAN6 ] is available now on Amazon. He lives and works in Washington State.

Related Stories

Dahr Jamail | ''Imminent'' Collapse of the Antarctic Ice Shelf and a ''New Era'' in the Arctic - By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report
[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3108 ... the-arctic ]

Dahr Jamail | Sixth Great Mass Extinction Event Begins; 2015 on Pace to Become Hottest Year on Record - By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report
[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3161 ... -on-record ]

Dahr Jamail | Mass Extinction: It's the End of the World as We Know It - By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Interview
[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3166 ... we-know-it ]