Thread by @AlexandraErin

I actually would think of this tweet as a positive development in how we're talking about climate change, in that it's treating it as an existential threat (as in: threat to our existence itself), which is RARE.

But I don't want people jumping on Team Nihilistic Defeatism.

https://twitter.com/postandcourier/status/1159909712537632768

You all remember that article about shopping for real estate in Miami? Finding out how realtors deal with the fact that they're selling time-delayed swamps in Florida and they definitely know they're doing so?

If you don't, here it is.

popula.com/2019/04/02/hea…

There is something powerful about seeing someone representing a city newspaper who breaks through the static and says, "This city is lost. We've fallen."

Maybe that will be the shock that wakes some people up.

But... but. We don't really know, as a species, how to recognize something as true without wanting to join a team. So if your Come To Climate Jesus moment is a newspaper channeling @nihilist_arbys and saying all is lost... if we look around and see this is the new cool thing...

@nihilist_arbys We've lost Charleston. We've lost Miami. The coast, as they say, is toast. And we need the coast. If we abandon them and move inland... oh, well, we'd better be prepared to go universal income and fully automated luxury communism or our inland states are going to be warzones.

@nihilist_arbys And then we have to figure out SHIPPING, when none of our port cities are habitable. You can't just go up to the new shoreline and drop anchor anywhere. There are reasons cities wind up in specific places.

And our new shoreline's going to be messy as heck.

@nihilist_arbys So here's where we get to the good news: the damage is done but the harm, the worst of it, hasn't happened yet. So we're looking into the future and we still have time, maybe, when we can change that future. If we have the will to act.

@nihilist_arbys Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are Anger and Courage.

I want to talk about Hope's sister.

Her name is Fear. Beautiful? I don't know if I'd say that. She can be glorious and terrible to behold.

Fear's not much use without Hope. But neither is Hope without Fear.

@nihilist_arbys If you have Hope without Fear, that's more like optimism. You're sure things will work themselves out, or if they need anything from you, it won't be much. You can play it by ear.

If you have Fear without Hope, you know things won't work out and you don't see how you can help.

@nihilist_arbys So I'm here to tell you to Please Fear Responsibly.

Be afraid enough to act with courage.

That's what we need now.

@nihilist_arbys If we could, as a species, figure out how to take care of each other without having to join teams to do it... to love thy neighbor because they're your neighbor, not because it's your neighborhood and The Sports Team From My Hometown Is Superior To The Sports Team From Yours...

@nihilist_arbys If we could master that trick, it would be a leap better than any technological singularity.

Because we're not beating climate change if we're concerned about who we're saving and why and maybe if it's their fault for living there, or being poor, or making bad choices.

@nihilist_arbys And we're not beating it if the only people talking about it as an existential threat are also phrasing it nihilistically and we just shrug and go "I guess we're doing this now."

Team Stop Joining Teams.