Mitigation, Adaptation, Denial?

Mon, Oct 02

ALBANY:

The weight of this sad time we must obey;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young

Shall never see so much, no live so long.

 

Exeunt, with a dead march

            —William Shakespeare, King Lear

How does climate change affect us on a moral and psychological level? This crisis forces us to reconsider basic questions of ethical decision-making; most basic, perhaps, is the question of the reproduction of human life itself. Another dimension is its relation to mental health: is it possible to rethink climate change as something other than a series of continuous, cascading disasters, thereby providing a healthier mental picture? While the the 'weight of this sad time' is certainly unavoidable, perhaps making sense of Shakespeare's injunction to '[s]peak what we feel' during a time of profound upheaval and disaster hints at a way to begin.

Goals

• Evaluate the argument Crist puts forth in the reading. How does the framing of the titular question, “is it okay to have a child?” evolve throughout the article?
• Think through how climate change makes us rethink how we concieve of the relationship between the individual and society.
• Consider the relationship between climate change and mental health.