I have already written about an ontological shock. This is some more of that, and I can guarantee there will be even more down the line, so here’s the deal: I started out this blog writing about memories regarding science and school and learning about the planet. I ended the entry atop a soapbox so high that I needed a ladder to get down. So, if you don’t read this entry, I understand. It’s not very light-hearted. But you should read the one about what ontological shock is, because you’re going to suffer it soon.
The classroom I am picturing in my memory is my third grade classroom at St Paul’s Elementary. I remember very little from this year because of unrelated traumatic events. I do remember this, however. I do remember sitting there with my science book and reading a lesson about how the Sun was a star, and stars eventually explode. I asked my teacher what would happen if the Sun exploded and she told me that life on Earth would end, because the temperature would burn everything. She told me that while the Earth’s temperature was rising, it was rising very slowly. She also told me that would not happen in my lifetime, so not to worry.
When I was a Junior in high school, I needed a science credit. My options were physics or Earth science, and while most of my peers chose physics, I chose Earth science because I hated math, and physics is just artsy brain-math. However, I was very bored in that class. I remember my teacher trying to get my attention, and trying to get me hyped up for special projects and such. Nothing made me interested. Once, she even offered extra credit if we attended a weekend field trip to the Penn-Dixie site. I did not enjoy it as much as I should have, because I was mad I was doing school things on the weekend just to keep my grade point average up. Another extra credit assignment I had was to do a project about the ozone layer. I wrote a four-page report, and I constructed a small Earth surrounded by the ozone layer. I made it out of a Styrofoam ball and blue Saran Wrap. I got an A.
Anyway, my point is that I studied climate change in school. By the time I got to high school, I was informed at the temperatures were rising faster than expected- but that still wouldn’t be a problem in my lifetime. Yeah, well, tell that to the six feet of snow outside of my door 20 years later.
Today I saw a political comic online. It was a woman reading a newspaper about global warming, while her husband stood by the door with a shovel and said “I guess I’m going to go shovel another 26 inches of climate change out of the driveway!” The group that posted the comic was certainly MAGA, but I laughed because of the ignorance. They thought the comic was making fun of the fact that it was snowing when the planet is “supposedly” getting warmer. I KNOW that the comic was making fun of the fact that people think that because it’s snowing the planet is NOT getting warmer. I know exactly why I have 6 ft of snow, because I learned the difference between climate and weather in school. I know that the rising temperature of the planet has caused the rising temperature of Lake Erie, so that it no longer freezes, which causes massive lake effect snow. I KNOW why “flowers are blooming in Antarctica.” (Though, not really. It’s just grass in Antarctica. That online meme is a pic from Greenland, but still.)
I used to say that I didn’t understand what everyone was so afraid of, and now I can say that I do know better. Everyone calling climate change false is suffering from ontological shock. As I often write, fear is our greatest enemy and our greatest motivator. I know it seems scary to many, and I’m not saying I’m not scared, but I’m not going to deny the threat in front of me. Like, I can see the man pointing the gun in my face. I’m not going to deny that the gun is there. Denial won’t keep him from shooting me.
So for a long time, I have been worried about the planet. More so, I am worried about other people NOT worrying about the planet. Like if your roof was caving in and you had the ability to patch it, you would do so. But no, so many people want to pretend the hole is not there, that they will just stand under it until it rains.
Am I a hardcore environmentalist? God, no. I definitely do not do enough, I can tell you that. I am terrible with recycling, although I do try; I drive an suv; I use too many paper plates because I hate washing dishes. But do I think we should be continuing to pump chemicals into our air and water from factories for things that we don’t really need? Absolutely not! If you don’t have another way to do it, don’t do it. And I’m sure there’s another way to do it, it’s just not what some companies would call “cost effective.” Because as always, money is more important than human life, according to our government.
Wow, I truly did not expect to be up here. This soapbox got real high while I was standing on it.
Listen, it has come to my attention from events in the past year that we are all going to experience ontological shock at some point, even me, who is already on board with the aliens and the climate change. Think about it this way: Buffalonians, do you remember when we had the earthquake? We never have earthquakes, and it sounded like a plane crashed in our backyard. The whole city was talking about it for days. It happened, of this we are certain, of this we believe our scientists, and our senses. But what happens when you can’t believe your senses? When it happened, I did think a plane crashed in my yard. I don’t know why that was the noise my brain associated with plane crashes, but it certainly was not associated with earthquakes. Earthquake was my third or fourth thought. In that split second, I could not believe my senses, and I was shocked. Fortunately, I had the ability to pick up my phone and figure out what the hell had just happened. But what are you going to do when it’s so big that we lose internet?
I am watching the people of Palestine right now, specifically a reporter whom I am interested in who is unable to go live often or post because of intermittent internet in the region. You know they could take out our internet just like that…right?
I’m not going to lie to you like my science teachers did. They obviously didn’t mean to, and I do believe they were both women of science and that they were working with what they knew at the time. Climate change is happening in your lifetime. Ontological shock will be happening to you at some point, probably more than once. You are going to end up questioning a lot of things in the coming years, especially who we are as a species. It will be scary, yes, but if we work together we can get through it. If we fight and argue and are divisive, we will all die out there in the exploding Sun.
Wow, that turned out to be a pretty dark blog entry huh? Oh well, not everything is sunshine and roses. Some s**t is real and scary. Have a happy Sunday anyway.
Ham 'N Eggs- by Brigid Hannon 