Write, or Be Written
Here’s what excites me about our climate crisis: It invites us to change. “We face a choice that is starkly simple: We must change or be changed,” writes Wendell Berry. “If we fail to change for the better, then we will be changed for the worse.” Okay, so the alternatives are either exciting or terrifying, but still: Dire circumstances give humans the opportunity to create something new, and this fills me with hope. Berry’s words remind me of a novelist friend who signs her books, “Write, or be written.” I don’t think Elissa’s trying to make authors out of her readers; rather, she’s suggesting that everyone has the choice to accept the stories our culture tells about us or create our own. The climate story our culture has written is dictated by consumption and profit at the expense of the earth and the poor who live close to it. It’s…