Share, Share, Share

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to write a blog focused on climate reflections. Indeed, like my response to news articles that provoke or inspire me, I’ve already written many entries in my head. These entries are typically either enraged or applausive (a word I picked up from George Eliot’s Middlemarch and use when I can) and, like most mental musings, tend to lose steam as they go, issuing out in many directions, invoking many imagined interlocutors, and then falling away as I make dinner, teach my classes, notice something new. Which is fine.

But this desire to write more about my experience in our climate-imperilled times has persisted. I know from writing other blogs, that this sort of practice will help to focus my attention, will bring some things into view in new ways, and will provide me with a forum for engaging regularly with the background buzz or foreground roar that is my awareness of the climate crisis, however much I may push it to the sidelines to do my work and live my life. It will, in short, let me turn that buzz or roar into words and images that, in the best case scenarios, help me to make sense of things.

I also believe that the climate crisis requires multiple approaches. I often think of a story that the energy humanities critic, Stephanie LeMenager, recorded in an interview with Emily Ferguson several years ago. She asked Ferguson, an undergraduate student who documented Enbridge’s Line 9 through a blog that created community and galvanized climate action, if she had any advice for people interested in climate thinking and action. Ferguson responded as follows:

“The number one thing is research, research, research. You’ve got to dig into one thousand–plus–page documents and understand what’s really going on, and educate yourself as an individual but then not hold the knowledge for yourself. Share it. Research like crazy. Make sure that you really have the documents to back up what you’re talking about, and then share them with as many people as you can. I find that when you start to become known as a source of knowledge, more people come to you and say, “Somebody said you know about this.” And then you can explain to them. They spread it. The knowledge grows” (np.)

This response also underpins my thinking here which, while different from the on-the-ground research conducted by Ferguson, is nevertheless sustained by a principle of working with others, sharing what one learns, adjusting information in response to feedback, and sharing again. As Ferguson notes, “the knowledge grows.”

The noun, share, refers to the part or portion of some larger whole. Its root is division. The verb, to share, however, is about community. It takes that divided part or portion (a share) and distributes it among others (sharing). Its various examples almost always reference having something "in common with others." Indeed, when I turn to the dictionary I find that “sharing” references many of the topics I am most interested in:

“have a portion of (something) with another or others: he shared the pie with her • give a portion of (something) to another or others: they shared out the peanuts. • use, occupy, or enjoy (something) jointly with another or others: they once shared a flat in Chelsea • possess (a view or quality) in common with others: other countries don't share our reluctance to eat goat meat. • (share in) (of a number of people or organizations) have a part in (something, especially an activity): UK companies would share in the development of three oil platforms. • tell someone about (something, especially something personal): she had never shared the secret with anyone before. • post or repost (something) on a social media website or application: the app lets you share your photos on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.”

In many ways, sharing makes the larger whole greater than the sum of its parts. To be sure, many of the examples offered do not reference divisions (secrets, photos). But when they do, the wholes (pies, peanuts, apartments) become experiences, perhaps even experiences in which one talks about the climate crisis (the students discussed the climate crisis in their apartment as they ate pies and peanuts, for example). But the divisions are there too. Some countries are set apart from others by their eating practices. Further, pies, peanuts, and goat meat themselves all have different climate implications. Questions of climate are built into everything one does including what and how things, views, beliefs, words, and blogs like this are shared. Dictionary definitions also tell us something about a culture. In this case, pies, peanuts, and not eating goat meat, for example, are the go-to examples.

And oil infrastructures are so ubiquitous, so everyday, so readily understood in the Global North that they, too, are go-to references in dictionary definitions. Just before sharing something personal and sharing on social media, the definition offers this: “(share in) (of a number of people or organizations) have a part in (something, especially an activity): UK companies would share in the development of three oil platforms.” It’s easy to pass over without comment. But I want to pause here and notice how oil informs everything we do (my thermos, my computer) including the words we use and the way we speak. It’s not a secret; it's worth sharing.

Anne Raine recently shared some of her climate change and humanities syllabi with me. Among other things, these syllabi reminded me that the French origin of the word essay means “to try”—not to succeed necessarily, but to try. She notes this point to reassure her students. I find it reassuring, too, especially in this moment. I am an advocate of trying everything (except symbolic or physical violence) to address the climate crisis. Some things will succeed and others will not but if sharing has to do with divisions, it also has to do with multiplications as shares are shared. And this point seems nowhere more salient than with words and ideas.

I had the idea of writing a blog and, at one point, after talking to my wise twenty-something daughter, Michal, who is completing an MA in global health, suggested to her that we write it together. I thought there might be some value in bringing together the ideas of an old person (me) and a young person (her) on climate-related issues. I was also inspired by the wonderful Frog Trouble Times Newsletter that Belle Boggs writes with her daughter (a different venture than mine would have been since her daughter is 10). Michal agreed and we collected notes together in a Word document that we called “Thinking Out Loud Together.” At some point, we both thought that would be a good name for our blog. Not surprisingly, she became too busy with her degree to collaborate on a blog but I asked her if I could continue to use our phrase and she said yes. I like it because even if, strictly speaking, Michal and I are not thinking out loud together here, I am always thinking with others even when that thinking is only in imagined conversations. And Michal and my son, Ben, are two of my best sparring and spurring partners, and their impact on my thinking will be everywhere in these entries.