Out with the old, in with the new?

Today is the first day of 2016.  I am writing this from Orcas Island, an island in the shape of a horseshoe, one island in the archipelago of the San Juan Islands.  The air outside is crisp and cold despite the best efforts of the Sun.  The birds of the island fly by the window, to them it is just another day and the symbolic importance of the new year means nothing.

So, it is time to say goodbye to 2015 and send our hopes and dreams off into the not too distant future, where hopefully they will become manifest.  This last year was a rocky one for sure.  The new was littered with stories of violence, if it wasn't the police doing the killing, we knew to blame it on the religious fanatics or the mentally disturbed.  2015 was also the warmest year in the history books. Temperatures on Christmas Eve in New York City were in the 70's, just shy of where they were on the 4th of July.  As the year ended, many people in the southern parts of the United States, faced unsure futures as they watched their homes and possessions swallowed up by funnel clouds.  Unusually warm temperatures met with storms to create these tornadoes.  Scientific reports came out about the melting of Greenland and the impacts that the dumping of this fresh water into the seas may have.  Still, there are those out there who deny that we are living in a changing world, even though the evidence is clearly there, before our eyes.  We have come to a point in our human evolution where economic gain outweighs the importance of clean air, clean water and a viable future for our children and grandchildren.

We are now living in a geological epoch that many scientists and thinkers have chosen to refer to as the "Anthropocene", so called because of the impact of humans on the Earth's ecosystems.  We are also seated snuggly in the Holocene extinction or the sixth great extinction.  Extinction is a natural process of any ecosystem but, and I personally find this hard to bear, we carry the majority of the responsibility for this extinction.

So, this is where we find ourselves.  Where is there to look for hope as we fumble forward in the darkness?  How can we slow the impending ecological collapse?  What hope do we have to save ourselves from religious and systematic violence and terror?

I recently returned to college after a fifteen year gap in my education.  I just completed the first quarter of an Environmental Studies program.  During a conversation with other classmates, a student who is of Native-American descent spoke of the idea that earlier peoples had more respect for the environment.  He said that he didn't believe this to be true and that they simply didn't have the tools needed to exploit the planet in the ways that we do in this day and age.  Thinking on this, I came to a realization.  We are at a completely unique point in human history and have the greatest opportunity for positive change.  We have seen the dangers that the loss of enchantment with the world can cause.  We have seen what happens when we prioritize economic gain over the health of the ecosystems that provide us with what we truly need to live.

I hope this new year is one of clear vision and bold voices.  I hope for a shift in the way that we humans view the world, towards a more holistic way of seeing, where we recognize that we are one small part of a global ecosystem and that all life carries its own inherent value, equal to our own.  I hope that we all see our way to a more peaceful, just and carrying way of being in the world.  I hope for a recognition of the beauty that is the wild world and a letting go of the conceit that we have are worth of dominion over the world.

Happy New Year!