Recently it feels like there is an explosion in happy talk around climate career opportunities and people’s individual climate accomplishments. Happy talk is a positive and enthusiastic use of language.
For me, who has been trying to do anything meaningful in this area since 2015, happy talk is quite depressing. It’s as if I missed the climate cruise ship, and while some people are off saving the world, I am stuck here with the specific environmental problems I work in. It’s not that I don’t want to see enthusiasm, I would love to be enthusiastic about my work. It’s not that I don’t think positivity is good, because I know that we can’t sow despair. There is a certain amount of positivity that feels like oppression. Like we can’t really face the despair, like we can’t face the disappointments, and like we can’t face the disasters.
Admittedly, right now, I am depressed about the climate. I am on the other end of the “Happy Talk” spectrum. For the past 4 years, I’ve spent that time researching tons of climate careers. This list of job options reads like a pamphlet on climate solutions. The climate problem is so vast, and there are so many ways to make a difference. Some of the careers I’ve considered:
- global climate financier
- climate justice grassroots organizer
- Climate adaptation resource librarian
- Greentech workforce development
- Climate grants administrator
- Anti-oil wilderness protection campaigner
- Community solar implementor
- Wildfire emergency response
While all of these jobs can be meaningful, looming in shadows are the obstacles. After a twenty year career, I am in danger of idealism burnout. Environmental opportunities are being squandered all the time. Power structures are not ready to make change. Watching the day in and day out rise and fall of opportunities is spiritually exhausting. Climate solutions are out of reach because of imagination failure, not because of lack of resources. What it boil down to is:
“Culture will eat strategy for breakfast”
“Happy Talk” is an easy way to build a culture of emotional repression. If everyone is covering up the climate mess with enthusiasm, it can be frightening to pull the lid off. Asbestos, molds, can all hide under the cover of Happy Talk. Humanity is not having a shining moment. The rise of facism, racism and loss of kindness is revealing that there was a lot of ignorance in the shadows of American culture. Happy Talk is not going to solve that, but it can do some harm.
In this world of black and white thinking, it can feel like only confessionalism is on the other side of Happy Talk. A confessional narrative of trauma that is quickly emotionally overwhelming, in our world full of painful stories. Personally, I prefer traumas to be fed to me with a large dose of humor. But I will take trauma dumping over Happy Talk. So tell me about your failures, tell me about the challenging group dynamics. Talk with me about the six months or two years that you accidentally wasted. I don’t want to stay talking about the problems forever, but without out hearing the hard stuff, when I read the Happy Talk, I’m just going to think:
“They’re lying”
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