This past week has been quite eye-opening as much as it was sobering. I thought I knew what kind of class I would be taking when I saw its title, but this past week continued to show me with how much I don’t know, as well as how incomplete many of my previous mental frameworks are. One of the more exciting prospects though is that I can be challenged to think within an interdisciplinary lens which can bring about new conclusions that couldn’t happen otherwise. My background is in economics, and while it is excellent in describing the mechanics of a lot of social phenomena, it is very sterile and devoid of the emotions and the grit that’s necessary to truly understand many of the greatest social issues of our time–including climate change.

Richard Heinberg’s discussion around energy most aptly sums up my current feelings. He discusses the limits of power in a given system, and particularly for humans. It has the inexorable truth that we as a species have reached a limit to our strive for power, and now we are experiencing diminishing returns and over-consumption. This may ultimately culminate in what Heinberg describes as an involuntary power limit in which the cessation of power may be death, collapse, and possibly extinction.

Climate Anxiety Survey Results from Nature.

When I read the word “extinction,” I get frustrated that I can’t possibly fathom such a prospect. After all, how can I conceptualize non-existence? This frustration ultimately turns into anxiety and I get stuck. According to a recent Nature study, many of my contemporaries testify that climate change has made them feel sad, anxious, and even powerless. I’ve always understood that environmental threats have been looming over our existence, but I never realized how insane it all is.

However, I’ve slowly been learning the importance of resilience, or how Heinberg describes it as “the capacity of a system to encounter disruption and still maintain its basic structure and functions.” Applying this to my own life has been very helpful in managing my anxieties about our current crisis as well as giving me a tool to understand how we can adapt our current systems for if (and most likely when) a societal collapse occurs. Innovation and restructuring broken systems will be paramount to building our new foundation that will be more suited for all life.

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