Searching for the bright side
For the past several years, I have been teaching an honor’s seminar course on “The Anthropocene and the Sixth Extinction.” For an hour a week, we discuss a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert’s 2016 book The Sixth Extinction and I lay out the scientific background and evidence for the increasing damage done to our natural environment. None of the students are majors in my department, so this is their first in depth examination of the issue. Many have family members who are in denial about global change; we talk about how to discuss it with them.
Over time, in this course and others that I teach on climate, extinctions, and other aspects of global change, I have struggled with how not to be simply a bearer of bad tidings. As Jon Stewart said when he interviewed Kolbert on the Daily Show, “Was there a hopeful note? I did not see a hopeful note in the book!” And as I update my courses every time I teach them, it is not difficult to pile on the negatives: “Global carbon dioxide levels have passed 400 ppm and are still going up!” “Last year was the hottest on record!” (That one gets repeated a lot). “The last male northern white rhino just died!” etc. It is hard not to be angry and depressed.
But as a friend pointed out to me, my students are young and bright; I do them a disservice by not finding areas of optimism and giving them hope that much can be done to avert the worst. I now finish with a litany of positive developments (or as I call it, “an antidote to despair”). The first of these are various international agreements, beginning in 1987, that worked to eliminate the chemicals that were depleting the ozone layer. I am pleased to tell them that they seem to be working. We then review success stories of species recovery: the bald eagle, the California condor and the bison. They learn of the first glimmers of hope about the fungal diseases devastating bats and amphibians. I raise the possibility of de-extinction and we discuss whether is it a good idea. And we end with an open discussion of what we as individuals can do.
I cannot and will not sugar coat the very real environmental challenges that these students will face in their lifetime. But if we, as a society, are to survive them, they also need to know about the things that have worked and think about the lessons they teach. And it makes me feel much better to leave them on a positive note.
In the hysterical and surrealistic final scene of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the condemned men on their crosses are exhorted to sing, “always look on the bright side of life!” In the real world, this is becoming harder and harder to do. But there are bright sides; it is our responsibility to make more of them.
