flower-surviving-on-rocks_1024

Extinction On My Mind /7:
Resilience

Resilience needs to be less focused on climate disasters and more on accepting our extinction

By Randi Hacker

January 16, 2025

Here we are, on the cusp of the inauguration that will put Donald Trump back in the White House. We know what to expect: attacks, disrespect, and greed – often all three at once, especially in times of crisis.

Of which there will be many, I’m sure.

Back in my first column, I wrote:

If the Republicans win, our extinction will come much sooner, and it will be more painful; if the Democrats win, the end will be delayed, and our extinction anxiety counselling will be covered by our insurance providers.

Well… In Kansas City, there is an organization that calls itself The Resilient Activist. Their mission is to provide resources and support to help people face climate change with strength and hope. They host regular Climate Cafés at which group members can share their fears and grief and astonishment and anger and feelings of helplessness in the face of the catastrophic events that are occurring with greater and greater frequency and greater and greater intensity.

In Kansas City, there is an organization that calls itself The Resilient Activist. Their mission is to provide resources and support to help people face climate change with strength and hope.

In my novella, the main character attends one.

Some months earlier, before her paradigm had shifted so utterly and completely, Ellie attended a Zoom meetup of the Climate Salon, a support group for people who are suffering psychological distress due to the climate crisis and want to talk about it. Four women, including the facilitator, whose name is Shirley Ettinger, and who is someone Ellie knows from around the climate activist community. Shirley is unfailingly compassionate and soft-spoken, a gentle soul.

After everyone had introduced themselves, Shirley invited people to talk about what impact the climate crisis had had on them and their lives. To kick the discussion off, Shirley told everyone that the warming climate and predicted droughts had inspired her to learn all she could about native plants, become a Master Gardener, and go full xeriscape in her yard. Thea, the woman in the upper-right-hand square, talked a little bit about her own garden of entirely native plants, and Shirley and Thea threw around a few Linnean names and laughed. And then Shirley said, “Anyone else have anything to share?” and Bernice, the woman in the lower-left-hand square, raised her hand and said, “I do,” and Shirley said, “We’re all listening.”

Bernice cleared her throat and looked down at her hands. “I’ve never told this to anyone before,” she said.

“This is a safe space,” said Shirley.

Bernice said, “When I know someone who is having a baby, I find it hard to say congratulations.”

Ellie sat up straighter and cocked an ear.

“I mean, congratulations for what?” said Bernice. “For bringing a baby into a toxic, overheating, overpopulated world? What parent would want that kind of a life for their child?”

There was a stunned silence.

Ellie took a closer look at Bernice over there in her square. Fortyish, short brown hair, a tense face, a Fair Isle sweater. In the background, a bookshelf and a healthy-looking Schefflera.

Bernice said, “I feel like I’m the only one who feels this way.”

Ellie unmuted herself and said, “You’re not.”

There was another stunned silence, and then Shirley said, “It’s been shown that the climate crisis can bring up unfathomable feelings in all of us.”

Ellie said, “I don’t think this feeling is in any way unfathomable, Shirley. In fact, I think it’s completely fathomable. It’s an important question. It might be the important question.”

There was a short silence, and then Shirley said, “Ellie! You never fail to astonish me. Anybody else?”

“You know,” said Rhea, “speaking of unfathomable feelings, just the other day, I had the insane urge to rip the bluestem right out of my prairie acre and plant some nonnative but colourful species.”

“Did you?” asked Shirley.

“Heavens, no!” said Rhea. “It was way too hot.”

Shortly after this, Ellie typed “Gotta go” in the chatbox and left the meeting.

‘… if we are able to appreciate this life on earth even as we bid it farewell, if we are able to keep on living until we don’t, that’s what I would call resilience.’

I am a firm believer in the importance of resilience. It’s a survival trait and a good one. But I feel that resilience needs to be less focused on climate disasters and more focused on accepting our extinction and moving on from there.

Impossible, you say? How can we be resilient in the face of the extinction of our species? It can be done. You know those friends – we all have at least one – who were resilient in the face of death, appreciated what time they had left even as they bid farewell to the people and things they loved? It didn’t mean that they didn’t cry or rant or pout. They did. And then they kept on living until they didn’t.

If we are able to greet each glimpse of Venus in the western sky, each note of a spring birdsong in December, each whiff of exhaust with a sense of poignancy and wonder; if we are able to appreciate this life on earth even as we bid it farewell, if we are able to keep on living until we don’t, that’s what I would call resilience.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WestmountMag.ca or its publishers.

Feature image: Nacho Juárez – Pexels

Bouton S'inscrire à l'infolettre – WestmountMag.ca

Other articles by Randi Hacker
Other recent articles


Randi HackerRandi Hacker has been a writer and editor since the 20th century, and she’s been writing about the environment for more than thirty years, mostly to empower young people to take agency in their future. Satirical essays written with a partner appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Punch and Spy, among other publications. Her YA novel, Life As I Knew It, (Simon & Schuster) was named one of the Books for the Teen Age by the NY Public Library, and her TV show, Windy Acres, written with Jay Craven, was nominated for a New England Emmy for Writing. She just retired from her position as the resolutions copy editor for the State of Vermont, a job that has forever damaged her relationship with the comma. randihacker.com



There is 1 comment

Add yours
  1. sandra shatilla

    Excellent article…..you expressed exactly how I feel….what a world we are living in now!
    The thought and possibility that indeed, we have poisoned our Earth home and we may
    be an extinct species ourselves.

    Yes, live life with resilience….cherish every moment….be aware of the beauty on this earth…
    and live it to the full……with sadness, yes, but with resilience..
    A BEAUTIFUL MESSAGE


Post a new comment