A New World Needs Us

There is another world. One where the sun shines warming every corner and valley. One where people take only what they need from the Earth. One where communities never go hungry or thirsty, where they are fulfilled physically and spiritually.

But we are far from it. 

We have done our world a disservice. Global warming is approaching 2 degrees Celsius, which experts say could bring about mass extinctions, weather catastrophes, and unbearable heat waves. That means more will go hungry, without water, and in life-threatening levels of heat. And while oil companies pull record-level profits, more and more of our world’s peoples are unhoused, overworked, and without basic necessities.  

How can we imagine a new world without awakening our desire to look ahead? It requires us to change the very way we see this world. It requires us to ask ourselves why we chain ourselves to this fundamental belief of unbridled growth, consumption, and work. 

The Green New Deal proposed back in 2019 outlines a vision for this very world. It calls for reducing global emissions through pioneering a 10-year plan to shift toward renewable energy, equipping buildings to be more energy-efficient, and investing in comprehensive public transportation systems. 

While it doesn’t include specific policies and technologies, it does include a realistic approach to the inequalities faced by communities nationwide. Things like universal health care, liveable wage for all, and stronger labor rights, are but a few prospects that, if implemented, could profoundly change American life as we know it.

But it is nothing but words on paper. Its critics claim the trillions required to enact the plan could be spent on better things. Its proponents have little to say about how to actually put it in motion. And while politicians sit debating on where tax dollars should be spent, climate change will ravage the world sooner than we think. Without action, we risk watching our world succumb to its ails, unable to sustain future generations. Voting is the next best course of action —- supporting leaders that seek to better conditions for all —- but what else can we do? How can we carry that duty of bringing about a new world while getting by in our current one?

It starts with less.

The pandemic that swept across the world and continues to affect people daily seismically shifted how we spend our time. We had more time alone, trapped inside, isolated from others or with housemates and loved ones, sealed away in our own tiny corners of the world. We tried to fill those corners with things to subdue the dread a debilitating pandemic had wrought on all of our lives. 

But the joy of clicking “purchase” did nothing to quell my worries for my parents, front-line workers dealing first-hand with what still is a deadly virus. It did nothing to soothe my anxiety over what came after high school after losing my senior year to Zoom lectures and days spent mindlessly at home. The clutter built on my desk, my bed, my floor, a manifestation of the state of my mind – a mess. 

So little by little, I tidied away what was taking space. I held onto the things that mattered most to me – my health, my happiness, and my future – and kept the rest out of sight. 

I realize this is a luxury. Minimalism itself is a luxury, as it asks those already financially able to live with less and consciously. The working class and those economically worse off cannot reach the fulfillment of minimalism promises the same way those with multiple homes and six-figure incomes can. That world is our reality. 

That world can be changed. But change cannot start from those at the top with the power to strip women of their reproductive rights, ban books from classrooms, and enable a federal government insurrection. We are in a time of reckoning, of realization that our leaders do not lead with compassion but with an iron fist. And we are tired of leaders blind to the injustices their people face every day, blind to the inequalities that persist in our communities, and blind to the needs of the people they are sworn to serve.

We are tired.

But to follow their footsteps of disregard for this world would be a disservice. We deserve to see a new world come to fruition. To do so, however, requires us to detach ourselves from the fleeting comfort of the material world and consume ourselves with living. It is a reimagining of the things we deem valuable, worthy of time, effort, and devotion. For some, this isn’t even a choice they are able to make. 

For the factory workers that work for wages less than a Happy Meal, the office workers too exhausted to think after a day’s shift, the unhoused that give their all just to live another day — they should not be the ones who need to carry this burden of championing change. It falls on those with the privileges to learn about their injustices, and do something about it.

This is what climate activism is. It is an irrevocable love for the world, for the community, and for people. To love something is to wish it boundless happiness and prosperity, and to be a part of the journey to reach it.

We can see this world anew. And it starts from here.