Bravo Lindsey. I feel your pain and share your dilemma. To be recommending experiences, sharing stories and discussing travel and food in France without acknowledgement of the challenges we face feels like doing so with one eye closed. Yet editors seem to only want the rose-tinted and lowest common denominator versions. Thankfully Substack allows us a full spectrum.
Thank you for your reflections, Lindsey. I moved to Paris to become an independent educator (my area is climate literature) and now am living through the hottest summer of my life. My writing and teaching have taken on a whole new urgency and meaning. The eclipse did feel like the opening scene of a thriller film (it was also beautiful, because Paris is beautiful). I hope you are staying safe in the heat, it definitely exacerbates my chronic pain!
I was in Paris in February and was overwhelmed by the number of tourists at the major sites. I now understand that there may not be an "off-season" for tourism in Paris. I bring this up because I think that a lot of travelers have tried to go outside of the summer rush to avoid the crowds, but, additionally, there will be a huge push to visit January through March, leaving almost no period of true respite for the locals (who need at least a brief break from over tourism).
The climate grief stuff is definitely something that's been coming up for me a lot. And indeed one of the lessons from it is that grief and joy can and should happen together. They are not fundamentally incompatible, and it's unhealthy to just grieve. We can also make art, and indeed some of the most amazing, humanizing art comes from the grief process. We must live our lives. We just need to let go of our attachment to them going the way we expect, and live the best way we can given the external circumstances we don't control.
That said, your chart illustrates a problem that we all collectively need to get over, and that you've alluded to after you presented it: nothing that any of us do individually is going to help with this in any significant way, but we tend to have really strong cognitive biases leading us to believe that it can.
E.g., Donald Trump has probably done more to solve the problem by destabilizing the oil supply and reminding non-oil-producing countries of their strategic interests than I have in my whole life by trying to not waste energy (e.g., I don't own a car, which is pretty high on that list). Of course Donald Trump has probably blown that with all the work he's done to make America a manly oil-dependent nation again, but hopefully you get the point: little actions may add up, but only if we all do them, and we aren't all going to do them.
So if we want to actually fix this, those of us who are already activated need to be thinking about how to reach the voters who are voting against their interests. It's not enough to bemoan the situation, or to document it. We have to decide to try to change it. Look e.g. at what Amanda Litman (https://amandalitman.substack.com) is doing with her Run For Something organization. I wonder if there's anybody trying that in France.
Thank you for articulating the conflicting emotions so many of us are experiencing. To carry the weight of foreboding, to suffer through heatwaves and fires, to not forget even when there is relief, and also to feel JOY and AWE while hiking or going to the beach or watching a solar eclipse. It is all one in the same. We love and cherish our planet, we love and cherish the seasons, and we mourn what we are losing…the ski seasons without snow, the summers where you can’t go outdoors. I’ve been in Santa Cruz, CA since July—the temperatures are so livable, and the living so good, it’s been difficult to remember the suffering elsewhere, including what we lived through in Paris in June. Yet the action of enjoying nature is perhaps an essential component of the action of political change we must advocate for. I’m glad you saw the eclipse! I hope there were other moments of joy in your summer.
Bravo Lindsey. I feel your pain and share your dilemma. To be recommending experiences, sharing stories and discussing travel and food in France without acknowledgement of the challenges we face feels like doing so with one eye closed. Yet editors seem to only want the rose-tinted and lowest common denominator versions. Thankfully Substack allows us a full spectrum.
You’ve articulated so well what I’m feeling, and so many others. I also struggle with how to reconcile my career with my values wrt the planet. xx
Thank you for your reflections, Lindsey. I moved to Paris to become an independent educator (my area is climate literature) and now am living through the hottest summer of my life. My writing and teaching have taken on a whole new urgency and meaning. The eclipse did feel like the opening scene of a thriller film (it was also beautiful, because Paris is beautiful). I hope you are staying safe in the heat, it definitely exacerbates my chronic pain!
I was in Paris in February and was overwhelmed by the number of tourists at the major sites. I now understand that there may not be an "off-season" for tourism in Paris. I bring this up because I think that a lot of travelers have tried to go outside of the summer rush to avoid the crowds, but, additionally, there will be a huge push to visit January through March, leaving almost no period of true respite for the locals (who need at least a brief break from over tourism).
The climate grief stuff is definitely something that's been coming up for me a lot. And indeed one of the lessons from it is that grief and joy can and should happen together. They are not fundamentally incompatible, and it's unhealthy to just grieve. We can also make art, and indeed some of the most amazing, humanizing art comes from the grief process. We must live our lives. We just need to let go of our attachment to them going the way we expect, and live the best way we can given the external circumstances we don't control.
That said, your chart illustrates a problem that we all collectively need to get over, and that you've alluded to after you presented it: nothing that any of us do individually is going to help with this in any significant way, but we tend to have really strong cognitive biases leading us to believe that it can.
E.g., Donald Trump has probably done more to solve the problem by destabilizing the oil supply and reminding non-oil-producing countries of their strategic interests than I have in my whole life by trying to not waste energy (e.g., I don't own a car, which is pretty high on that list). Of course Donald Trump has probably blown that with all the work he's done to make America a manly oil-dependent nation again, but hopefully you get the point: little actions may add up, but only if we all do them, and we aren't all going to do them.
So if we want to actually fix this, those of us who are already activated need to be thinking about how to reach the voters who are voting against their interests. It's not enough to bemoan the situation, or to document it. We have to decide to try to change it. Look e.g. at what Amanda Litman (https://amandalitman.substack.com) is doing with her Run For Something organization. I wonder if there's anybody trying that in France.
Thank you for articulating the conflicting emotions so many of us are experiencing. To carry the weight of foreboding, to suffer through heatwaves and fires, to not forget even when there is relief, and also to feel JOY and AWE while hiking or going to the beach or watching a solar eclipse. It is all one in the same. We love and cherish our planet, we love and cherish the seasons, and we mourn what we are losing…the ski seasons without snow, the summers where you can’t go outdoors. I’ve been in Santa Cruz, CA since July—the temperatures are so livable, and the living so good, it’s been difficult to remember the suffering elsewhere, including what we lived through in Paris in June. Yet the action of enjoying nature is perhaps an essential component of the action of political change we must advocate for. I’m glad you saw the eclipse! I hope there were other moments of joy in your summer.
Sounds like a lovely atmosphere to enjoy the eclipse in its full glory! Please read my own experience here: https://substack.com/@brickwallzine/note/p-211049607?r=8u1zdr&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web