The Monster We Created

a climate change horror

There are many reasons to start a career in sustainability. But for me, it unfortunately all began with fear.

As a kid, I remember when I first heard the sun would one day burn out. I spiraled as this harsh reality sank in: we're all just temporary beings on a floating rock, and so much of it is out of our control. And now I was expected to move onto dividing fractions? Then I learned about climate change. As a lifelong "Type A" control freak, I was horrified by what was happening to the planet.

But then I realized something powerful: this climate change horror was caused by humans. And that meant one incredible thing—it's also within our control.

Another thing about me - I love horror and monsters. I've read that people with anxiety are drawn to horror films because it allows them to confront their fears in a controlled environment, something I can relate to. And one of the great things about the horror genre is most of it is crap. Crappy writing. Crappy acting. Crappy effects. Or the tri-crapta of all three. So when I find a good horror film or story that resonates, it’s like I found a treasure! 

I started seeing these fictional monsters come to life in my world.

I saw big oil companies and politicians as ruthless serial killers, only caring about short-term wealth at the expense of others and the planet. The climate deniers in my hometown manifested in my mind as hordes of zombies, blindly moaning about hot summers and "crazy" weather. They’re hungry for answers, but the ones right in front of them—answers scientists have known for years—are tied up in politics, so they pass them by like nothing. Some corporations felt like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, showing one responsible side while being pulled toward an uglier one. I even started to see the diseases and greenhouse gases stored in melting ice as a kind of "creature from the ice lagoon.”

Images created using Gemini

It's easy to vilify climate change itself, to look at the rising oceans, the dying crops, and the extreme weather, and just yell, "Why, climate change?!?"

But climate change isn't the monster. It’s a symptom of the real one; an unseen, parasitic force that feeds on our effort, empathy, and will. It disarms you by removing your desire to fight.

Like Dracula, it sucks your energy, emptying you out until you're nothing but a listless, indifferent shell. The real monster isn't climate change; it's our own complacency. If only climate change was as sexy as Dracula.

I'm not immune to it. If I'm honest, the fear that drove me to this career seems to fade a little more each day. I read headlines about natural disasters and temperature records and just scroll past them. I walk outside in November to 90-degree weather and don’t bat an eye. This apathy, ironically, scares the living daylights out of me. It's a monster we all have to fight, because at the end of the day, hope is still there. We are still in control. This is a monster we created.

To fight complacency, we must remember our purpose and our goals. The best way to do that is to break down big goals into smaller parts, and celebrate the small victories along the way. We also have to fight against complacency’s cousin, pessimism. I refuse to believe we're ever past the point of no return. 

"That's the nature of pessimism, it foreclosed the imagination of hope." - Zoë Schlanger in the book, The Light Eaters

Hope, imagination, and innovation are never in short supply when it comes to humanity. I believe in this power.

And the characters in my horror movie world are also much more complex than I made them out to be. People are complex; we aren’t truly good or evil. We’re antiheroes. The solutions we need will come from embracing our full, complex selves. Stay open, stay curious, and stay alert. And in the words of Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street, “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.”