Dear readers,
Greetings from snowy-for-now Michigan, USA. The weather’s been weird (less so than elsewhere). In the last ten days we’ve had a stretch in the 50Fs, snow in the teens, 40s, snow again. Snow/snowstalgia comes and goes. The planet’s running a fever.
There remains a lot of pain in the wider world right now. But I hope you are well today, wherever in the world you are.
Inside, at my desk, I keep trying new formats for this every-so-often newsletter. This edition: two book reviews, some short takes, and then a list of articles you might also find worthwhile. See what you think.
Four Thousand Weeks
Around the holidays, the time felt right to pick up a more reflective, big-picture, life “orienteering” type book. I knew which one it would be. I’d started it in October, was immediately wowed, then set it aside until I could give it fuller attention. The book:
Oliver Burkeman wrote a productivity column for years before he realized: the field was getting it wrong. Attempts to optimize one’s time will always fail unless they are clear-eyed about human limitation. So he wrote Four Thousand Weeks, a philosophical and practical anti-productivity book.
Its title, you may have guessed, is the sum of an 80-year life span—assuming one lives to eighty (a big assumption, all things considered). But Burkeman does not assume this. Rather, he uses this arbitrary number to argue that, because you or I could die at any time, time is not something any of us has at all, merely something we experience, moment to moment.
But even if you get that full eighty or even a hundred, the point stands: your time is limited. Even in a long and highly advantaged life, by the end, you will experience but a small fraction of all the life that was theoretically possible for you. That’s why it matters how you use it.
On one level, we know this. It’s why some of us—maybe especially those of us raised in capitalist and/or historically Protestant cultures—try to wring every bit of productivity out of our waking hours (or at least, hi, arrange our lives to feel productive). But trying to fit more into life for the sake of productivity is often a setup for unhappiness; it doesn’t add to your weeks, and often reveals how limited your control of those weeks actually is. Optimizing one’s life doesn’t, in itself, fill it with meaning.
This might sound depressing, but to Burkeman it’s actually good news. Drawing on Stoicism, Buddhism and more, Burkeman argues that liberation begins with accepting one’s mortality, in order that one might make conscious decisions about how to live within limited time rather than merely try to fit more into it.
This insight is the main throughline of the book. By facing our mortality, and the limits it places on our time and control and possibilities, we can make the tough choices about our time that ultimately allow life to be more fulfilling. Once we’ve let go of our denial and evasions around time, we actually can use it more “productively”—as defined by what is meaningful to us. Burkeman makes the case
“for embracing the truth about your limited time and limited control over that time—not simply because it’s the truth, so you might as well face it, but because it’s actively empowering to do so. By stepping more fully into reality as it actually is, you get to accomplish more of what matters, and feel more fulfilled about it.”
Though anti-productivity in a certain sense, Burkeman dispenses plenty of practical advice about how to manage one’s limited time: on procrastination, patience, partnering, place, planning, etc. Clever, clear, and psychologically insightful, Four Thousand Weeks toggles easily between macro and the micro dimensions of living in time as a finite human being.
I can’t help but read Four Thousand Weeks as a climate book. (Surprise.)
Though you won’t see ‘Environment’ on the dust jacket, I see it reflecting the big human questions about life in a rapidly warming world. Here are a few connections I see, but don’t let me stop you from reading and making your own meaning:
For one, the book asks us to face up to a large and uncomfortable truth—our days are numbered—and scrutinizes the mind games we play with ourselves to proceed as if this were not so. There is a similar dynamic at play with the ways we learn to live with the cognitive dissonance of being alive right now on an overheating planet. The effect can be similar: lowkey anxiety → avoidance behaviors → powerlessness. Psychologically, climate change can represent a form of death—of the world as we’ve known it, worldviews, animals and plants, places, a sense of safety. (That’s only part of the story; it’s also an opportunity to regenerate the earth and make human society more equitable and safe in the process. And so on.)
We can choose to not face the realities of climate change in daily life (certainly still true of me, often) because it requires us to face and confront our limited control, our finitude, our contingency. It forces us to reckon with the fact that we don’t fully know how things will turn out, even if we go all-in on planetary healing. Avoidance feels easier. Climate avoidance can mirror avoidance of one’s mortality.
Second, it draws attention to how short and limited our time is. Time is indeed very short to reduce emissions and secure a liveable future for all. Deadline-based messaging doesn’t tell the whole story. But time matters. What we do in the next 5-10 years are especially critical.
Finally, given that we have short, limited lives that happen to coincide with a planetary emergency, the book offers ways to live one’s little life, proactively in time, rather than attempting mastery over time. What might Four Thousand Weeks add to our toolkit for living in this climate era? A few that I took away, personally:
Be radically honest with ourselves: we cannot do everything we want and we have limited control over the results anyway. For Burkeman, the way forward starts with attuning to this. Then releasing the need to know whether our efforts to shape our lives or the world will prove effective. And then getting on with it and just doing the dang thing.
Slow down, rather than try to fit more into life. Ordering our days by urgency and overfilled to-do lists is, ironically, a way to make life move quicker, with less meaning to show for it. People like postactivist philosopher Dr. Bayo Akomolafe and systems thinker Dr. Elizabeth Sawin speak to a paradox for would-be changemakers: in urgent times, we must slow down. This book, in its own way, explores how to live within this paradox.
Choose your main projects first, lest “middling priorities” crowd them out:
“Spend your finite time focused on a few things that matter to you, in themselves, right now, in this moment…[even important things, like parenting or tackling the climate crisis] can only matter now, in each moment of the work involved, whether or not they’ve yet reached what the rest of the world defines as fruition. Because now is all you ever get.”
Here, I hear a strong echo of Annie Dillard’s line: How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.
Do the next and most necessary thing. Given that time is never guaranteed, only experienced—given that “the moment of truth is always now”—we have to keep putting one intentional foot in front of the other. Burkeman quotes Jung: “Do the next and most necessary thing…if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful.” In the end, that’s all we can do. So what’s next?
To recognize that we have limited control is, for Burkeman, the beginning of living with agency. In this way, Four Thousand Weeks is a guide to living with agency in an era that asks a lot of us.
I have one qualification about this book: it’s probably more helpful for people with more structural power (and flexible time) already in their lives. Burkeman is not unaware of this. He speaks to differing social and financial circumstances, and much of what he says bears weight for humans across life experiences. But still, it probably hits differently for people who have more options in the first place. (Like me, with time for a passion project newsletter.)
A tad more reflection to close this (already long) review. Burkeman offers five excellent reflection questions (p. 220-25), which alone are good reasons to find a copy. Burkeman wants us to face our mortality and find there perhaps a paradoxical freedom from endless to-doing. But after this, the book then begs the practical question whose answer lies beyond its pages: so, what will I do with my finite time, energy, and resources?
That’s the question I’d gently pass along to all of us. There are many ways to answer this question in line with one’s other values and priorities and life situations. But if acting on climate is one of the ways you are looking to use your finite time, here again is my ‘What Can I Do?’ series in one place, as one way to help you answer (two others: Climate Life quiz, for a trackable online place, and Earth Hero, if you’re more of an app person). Or let’s talk!
The book overall helped me do a bit of a personal stocktake around the new year in which I checked in on: what are my main goals right now? How are they going? Where do I need to readjust—either the goals themselves, or how I am pursuing them? I’m still sorting through my own conclusions and making changes—which will at least include less time on social media and writing.
Four Thousand Weeks is an anti-productivity book on using time well, written in the context of the climate crisis. I’ve drawn out some of its serious themes here—as I’m prone to—but you should know: the book itself is far from morbid. Well written, humorous, practical, and profound, I think it’s well worth the time. It challenged how I approach my core commitments. This review doesn’t do it justice, but I hope it gives you a sense of whether you too could benefit from reading it. If you do, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Following Jesus in a Warming World
One powerful influence on how people live in time is religious faith. (Case in point, this week began Lent, for Christians, a reminder, among other things, of their human frailty.)
This brings me to another book. My friend Kyle Meyaard-Schaap’s Following Jesus in a Warming World speaks directly to self-identified Christians in a winsome argument for faith-based climate action. It officially came out earlier this week.
Before diving into an overview, I get this isn’t everyone’s deal. Religion generally and Christianity in particular evokes varied associations. Some of you don’t identify with organized religion. Some of you identify with one faith tradition or another, or a mix. Of those who identify with Christianity, I know firsthand that the relationship may be a complicated, qualified, or nuanced one.
For better or for worse, faith shapes how people move in the world. It will invariably play a critical role in the years and decades ahead. Across traditions, religious faith is now providing more and more impetus toward environmental care as people work to make meaning in this era.
But there’s a long way to go. You may remember the Pew study I referenced last month, on religious Americans’ environmental views. For now, it appears that religious people are overall less likely to care about climate change than people who don’t consider themselves religious.
Evangelical protestants are the least likely group to accept that climate change is caused by human activity. Christians across the stripes claim there is a responsibility to care for the earth, but are twice as likely to participate in personal activities related to the environment, like using fewer plastics or carpooling (43%), than even one civic activity, like contacting an elected official or donating to an eco-focused organization (21%)” (from this helpful summary). There are a lot of religious folks out there whose climate commitments can stand to increase.
This is part of why Meyaard-Schaap wrote this book. Addressing those who identify with Christianity—and especially, U.S. evangelical Protestantism—he makes the overarching claim that, in a warming world, climate action is a necessary part of following Jesus. He explores this claim through a series of stories:
He distills the political, cultural, and economic stories that many of us in wider American culture—and especially those of us who grew up within white, conservative Christianity—have inherited about environmentalism. For example: it’s too political to talk about. And many others. There are definite historical reasons for those Pew findings above, and Meyaard-Schaap summarizes them succinctly.
He moves on to biblical and theological stories; the stories found in sacred Jewish and Christian texts. He contends with how they’ve been understood in light of concurrent political, cultural, and economic stories and offers ways to read them afresh. For example, how does it change our affections and actions when we view the earth as a site of ultimate renewal, rather than a place we’re ‘just passing through’ or we will ‘fly away’ from, to a heaven located somewhere else? He always brings the stories back to loving our neighbors, present and future, as if their fates were our own.
Throughout the book he weaves his personal story of activation, bound with the stories of those he’s met—from a Kenyan farmer to a Hurricane Katrina refugee to the folks whose livelihoods are tied to West Virginia coal. Though we are about the same age, Kyle began his climate journey a solid decade before I did. He’s experienced a lot and is good at sharing what he’s learned in a humble, invitational way. He models what he believes: “Each of us has a story with the power to change the world.”
Finally, he offers practical ways the reader can integrate one’s own faith story with climate action. A minister, Meyaard-Schaap knows to offer his audience things for the hands—not only the heart and the head. The book skillfully holds together the spiritual with the active. For example: a step-by-step to practicing political advocacy. Methods for engaging people in action-oriented conversation: bond, connect, inspire, invite. A handy list of spiritual disciplines to sustain action when the going gets tough, like joy. And plenty more.
If you consider yourself a Christian, or your loved ones are, I recommend reading and sharing this book. Meyaard-Schaap is a reliable guide, his writing is clear, and the stories he weaves together are accessible, eloquent, and hopeful.
Interested? I have an extra copy to give you if you’ll read and talk about it with someone. Reply to this email and I’ll send it to whoever’s first. Or you can get it here.
Short takes
On to some shorter takes:
Biodiversity. Since December’s global biodiversity treaty in Montreal—called “the best possible gift for any living thing who depends on this planet,” and a Paris Agreement for biodiversity—I’ve been thinking more about biodiversity, and why it is often thought separate from climate. (For one, ‘carbon tunnel vision’ is a thing, leading to missing climate’s relation to other ecological, social, or economic systems.)
But did you know that climate is only one of the nine planetary boundaries, and human systems have vastly overshot the boundary for biodiversity?
Some of you have seen the warming stripes representing global temperature increase; have you seen biodiversity stripes? All of the graphics on the site are worth viewing, but here’s a sample:
This trend is sad to see visualized. And yet could recent events, and additional social tipping points, begin to halt the damage? Could you imagine the world, rewilded? Even if there are formidable odds (e.g., the Amazon is really degraded), it’s worth imagining how that it might happen (e.g., early figures are positive on Lula’s conservation efforts in Brazil). Or here’s a lovely 6-minute video of one org’s vision:
I wrote this blog post last month on these topics (for a faith-based blog but I don’t think it is inaccessible).
As I said there, it can be daunting to locate ourselves in this story. I propose some ways we can support biodiversity, including choices about food, purchases, investments, and fostering healthy habitats in our own little corners of this vast earth. And truly, if you have any land in your care—shoot, even an apartment balcony that can handle potted plants—you can help the biodiverse web of life. Of course, we need policy and supply chain transparency, etc., first and foremost. Even still, planting native plants can make an outsized difference. Plus the fact that it feels good to bring part of the world you want into your daily life. If you live in the northern hemisphere, now’s a good time to prepare for spring.
Some good resources for nurturing biodiversity:
Native Plant Finders: National Wildlife Federation & Audubon
Or: a local chapter of a native plant or biodiversity club
Podcast. My friend Patty Martin kindly invited me onto her podcast recently. I enjoyed our chat—about city parks, climate stories, emotional literacy, books, and more. Thanks to Patty for the enjoyable conversation and generous words about this little newsletter. You can find the episode here. Check out her show in any case!
Big Oil. There is a staggering amount of energy news right now, much of it exciting. But amid it all, we oughtn’t miss this (speaking of Jesus):
Big Oil profited majorly in the last year, while people struggled with a cost-of-living crisis (remember those gas prices?). And despite receiving a record $1T in fossil fuel subsidies in 2022—thanks in part to the war that started a year ago today.
Meanwhile, companies are backing off their commitments to…reduce oil and gas (shocking). Per Financial Times: “BP is in the midst of one of the most ambitious strategic overhauls in the sector after committing to cut oil and gas production by 40 per cent by 2030…to reduce the group’s emissions and pivot to lower-carbon forms of energy…But in what will be seen as a significant U-turn, the group scaled back its plans.” ExxonMobil too is backing out of its heavily advertised algae-based biofuels program despite the profits you see above. (More by ExxonKnews)
Why bring this to attention? There’s a lot of news to follow these days. But these dots connect. Fossil fuel companies need the public to keep thinking they are advancing climate solutions and helping with the energy transition so they can keep their grip on politics and economics. But they are not advancing climate solutions. These are some of the same companies that knew decades ago about the destruction their products would cause and could have shifted for real to renewables decades ago.
In better news: in spite of this, clean energy keeps exceeding expectations and creating jobs. Read on.
And more
Maybe you’ll find this smattering worth your time, too (even if only the headlines!):
“You Don’t Have to Be Complicit in Our Culture of Destruction” (New York Times). A short, inspiring interview with one of the living greats, Robin Wall Kimmerer, the scientist, member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and author of Braiding Sweetgrass (which I once wrote about here). A sample: “It’s a false dichotomy to say we could have human well-being or ecological flourishing. There are too many examples worldwide where we have both, and that narrative of one or the other is deeply destructive and cuts us off from imagining a different future for ourselves.”
Green Energy Investment Sets $1.1 Trillion Record in 2022 (Time)
Clean energy is cheaper than coal across the whole US, study finds (Canary Media). Which helps explain why…
Fighting climate change was costly. Now it’s profitable. (The Atlantic) But of course, there’s more nuance than the title suggests.
Can individuals solve climate change? New federal cash makes it more possible than ever (Washington Post). Not “solve” and not as individuals, but people can do the needful on the home front, to their benefit. When it dies, electrify.
The climate benefits of a four-day workweek (BBC). With some nuance, yes, but there’s also this: “the time men spent looking after their kids also doubled” (The Skimm). Happy Friday indeed.
What do you make of all this? Always feel free to let me know. Or don’t—your time is limited. Thanks for reading.