So Then Why?

This year’s Climate and Society class is out in the field (or lab or office) completing a summer internship or thesis. They’ll be documenting their experiences one blog post at a time. Read on to see what they’re up to.

Narissa Turner, C+S ’18

“If it wasn’t climate change it would be something else.”

Something else to threaten the continued existence of the human species. This is the thought that keeps lingering around in the back of my head lately, especially since people at my work keep asking me why I study climate. It’s an uncomfortable question because I don’t have a clear-cut answer. What follows is my attempt at trying to answer that question (it’s an ongoing process).

I became interested in studying the Earth’s climate system and climate change as part of some larger quest to understand humanity. I started college thinking I wanted to be a veterinarian. People always told me you should pursue the things you loved or were interested in. I loved animals. I was interested in animals. Animals are also easy, or at least easier than dealing with people. People are complicated. They judge you, do things that aren’t logical, and seem hellbent on destroying themselves (whether they realize it or not).

Unfortunately, studying to be a vet wasn’t that interesting. Studying wildlife turned out to be boring, too. Or rather it didn’t really answer the question I found myself trying to answer: “why does everything on Earth appear to be in a state of degradation or dying?” In trying to answer this question, I quickly realized that I was more interested in people than I was willing to admit at first. This also led me to even more complex questions. I wanted to know why we interact with the natural world the way we do. More specifically, I was interested in how we go about addressing problems in the world around us.

This became glaringly obvious during a discussion I recently had with my co-intern about how to solve the issues that most threaten humanity. During the discussion, he argued that people who believe in change needed to have some sort of a vision for what that change should look like. So, in the context of tackling climate change how would I envision the world differently?

Narissa and David (Source: Narissa Turner)

Days after our conversation, I was still grappling with what my vision was for the future, and why I bother with climate work. I only came up with this thought: “If it wasn’t climate change it would be something else.”

I try creating solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation because that’s what it means to be human. We try to solve problems that threaten our survival, regardless of whether we can ever actually solve them. The lives we have today are thanks to the problems we solved in the past from curing polio to the Green Revolution. But every solution has consequences that sometimes lead to more problems that must be solved.

I realize that doesn’t count as a vision and may not be a satisfactory answer as to why I do climate work, but it’s as simple—as human—as I have to try. That and I take comfort in the fact that if it wasn’t climate change it would be some other problem that would threaten the human species, and that I’d be trying to help solve it. To some people, that may seem like a hopeless statement. But to me it means as long as humans continue to exist, there will continue to be problems for us to solve. So, I study climate change and how we can mitigate and adapt to it because it gives me something to try for. Because it proves my humanness.

I have to give a very special thanks to Andrew for helping me to think about why I doggedly pursue things without a clear vision.