43. All We Can Save

Ayana Johnson & Katharine Wilkinson. 2020.

Somehow I went into this book thinking that it was going to provide a positive spin on the environmental movement and on climate change activism.  Alas, I did not come out particularly inspired to optimism.  It is a collection of essays that are fairly well edited so there isn’t too much repetition of themes and facts, although there are some (particularly around environmental racism) that seemed like the authors were saying the exact same thing.  Some of the essays were well-written and interesting, while others felt choppy and were just depressing.  I read it straight through, falling asleep to it multiple times, but I think it might have been more palpable if I had read one essay a day instead and let myself digest and reflect on them one at a time.
One of the things that frustrates me is that many of the authors are quiet young and although their experience and education make them experts in the field of climate activism, I was perturbed by some of the attitudes towards older generations.  I suppose it is my age showing, but a couple of the essays acted as if there was no one working on environmental issues until the last 5-10 years when hey came on the scene.  They seems to spend a lot of time describing their perspective as if it is uniquely modern when in reality, people were for sure working on environmental racism before many of them were born.  The chapters about centering women’s voices could just as easily been writing 30 years ago as written now. Similarly, I was reading about the importance of listening to indigenous leaders in the 90’s, so I know this has been part of the landscape since at least then.  Acting like their cohort is the first cohort to work on these topics felt insulting to the people that I know have dedicated their entire lives to activism.  I was also put off on the chapter addressing mental health and the depression that comes from working to save a world when that may not even be possible.  This is not unique to this generation, nor is it unique to this issue.  Almost anyone who has been involved in activism for any length of time knows activists who get stuck in that depression—stuck thinking there is no point to anything since the whole planet is going to die. You can substitute in child abuse, racism in the legal system, access to medical care and medication, or any litany of issues and you will find activists in serious depressions stemming from a sense that nothing they go can possibly make enough of a difference to matter.
Not recommended as a cover-to-cover read.

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