We’re All in This Together

Back in November, just after All Saints and All Souls Days, I preached another sermon called We’re All in This Together. I spoke of the continuity of love on both sides of the grave, and I reminded us that sooner or later we all belong to a community of everyone who has ever loved someone who has died. A vast and all encompassing circle of mourners. Today, under the same title, we’re casting a still more vast circle–we’re all in this together, humanity and every creature, tundra, plant, pond, cave, mountain, prairie, forest, waterway, beach, reef, meadow, jungle, ocean, desert, and land formation on our planet home–all that which Unitarian Universalists have long called the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Milne’s reading reminded us that throughout the ages and still today there have been and are peoples and individuals who live closer to the land than many of us in this community now gathered via YouTube Live and in this room.

Ed’s reading reminded us of the beauty and blessing that are at stake this Earth Day and every day.

Hermina’s reminded us that our planet is more than 70% water–oceans, lakes, streams, rivers, icecaps, and called us into awareness of our belong in our ecosystems, not over them or apart from them.

And as I thought about the focus we chose for today, I kept returning to humanity–to what it means for all of us humans to be in this together, both as an intricate part of the interdependent web, and as a distinct subset of all that comprises the web. It’s one thing to acknowledge that what happens to part of the web happens to all of the web, to know that if we destroy the planet that makes our existence possible, we’ll, well, cease to exist. To realize that a long time before that moment comes, much that we take for granted about life now will have changed in ways we can’t yet quite imagine but that we know we probably won’t like. It is another thing altogether to acknowledge, in a meaningful way, in a visceral way, that those changes have already begun shifting, restricting, stunting, ruining the lives and livelihoods of our siblings, our cousins, our human kin, in more vulnerable communities and countries around the globe.

I heard someone talking about climate anxiety on the radio the other day. Climate- or eco-anxiety is defined as chronic fear of climate doom, and may be characterized by

Obsessive thoughts about the climate

Fatalistic thinking

Existential dread

Guilt related to one’s own carbon footprint

Anger or frustration toward older generations or government officials who have not done enough to curtail climate change

Feelings of depression, anxiety, or panic

Grief and sadness over the loss of natural environments

Trouble sleeping or concentrating

Changes in appetite.

The speaker, in that radio interview, expressed surprise that a 2021 survey of people aged 16-25 shows that the US, the UK, and Finland have much lower rates of climate anxiety than less wealthy nations such as the Philippines, India, Brazil and Portugal. I was surprised that they were surprised. With our wealth and power it is easier for folks in our country to buy and deny, ignore and pretend our way out of situations and realities that give rise to climate anxiety. But island nations, such as the Philippines, and poorer countries that rely on fossil fuels to help them work their way toward economic growth and stability can’t do so as easily. I call to mind the meme that became popular during the height of the pandemic: we’re all in the same storm but we’re not all in the same boat.

When we talk about climate change, around Earth Day and other times as well, we often focus on what we need to do to ensure a healthy planet, capable of sustaining life for our children and our grandchildren–such as holding global temperature growth to 1 ½ degrees. That’s a good conversation to have. We do well to educate ourselves about how we can reduce our individual carbon footprint, and how we can organize to influence corporations and governments to do their much bigger part toward achieving and maintaining that 1 ½ degrees for the benefit of future generations.

And, as people of faith, as people who speak of our kinship with people at the margins of society–at home and around the world–we are also called to educate ourselves about the ways we can stand in solidarity with those whose lives are already most impacted by climate change, the ways we can organize to influence corporations and governments to both stop harm and to provide redress and assistance. Our concern for the planet can’t just be about concern for future generations. It must also be about world community. About putting an end to damage already being done to the least of these our siblings. About not being surprised that young adults in other countries are more likely to report extreme or moderate worry about climate change than young adults in the US–even though about 90% of our young adults report climate anxiety at those levels. To educate ourselves on why it might be that about 75 % of 16–25 year olds in India and the Philippines report that climate change negatively affects their daily life and functioning while fewer than 30% of US 16-25 years report the same thing. And so forth.

There is a time, as the bumper stickers and t-shirts used to say, to think globally and act locally. But there is also a time to remember we’re all in this together. And sometimes, like right now, those two times are the same time. We must act locally, with our choices about transportation, food, entertainment, elections, knowing that those choices will have global consequences–on far away rainforests, and nearby reefs, on watersheds in Georgia and icebergs in the Antarctic, and hundreds of other ecosystems–and on the creatures and plants that need those ecosystems to stay alive. We must grapple with the reality that though we may all be in this together, as human inhabitants of this ailing Earth, neither the burdens nor the responsibility for remedying them, are evenly distributed. And we must give thanks, that our congregation is blessed by a faithful and robust Green Team that helps us manage our eco-anxiety by curating information and resources and projects for us, by bringing us into partnerships with other congregationally based Green Teams, GIPL and other organizations, and by leading us in worship each April, in celebration of our Blue Boat Home.

Amen.