猫咪社区

Everyone hates the preachy envirotwerp. When someone annoying says you can鈥檛 eat steak or fly to Bora Bora or buy the double-decker limited edition Yeezy Hummer, the backlash effects are profound. Eco-Insufferables make you want to buy two tickets to Bora Bora (Bora Bora Bora Bora?) just to spite them. My fear of inciting this backlash as just such a smug preacher is so great I eschewed talking climate for ages, rather than have my friends or family hate me for thinking I was trying to take their steaks away. 

But.

I think what I most feared in grade school is somewhat true. Back then I thought people could read my face鈥攖hat they could see what I was thinking (that so and so was stupid or cute, that I had taken the cookies, that every embarrassing idea [dogs and cats are brothers and sisters] was visible on my countenance.) 

Lately, I鈥檝e been annoyed when I sense people projecting my imagined judgments upon them. The tiny asides by friends and loved ones: Sarah will think this is bad. I bristle because I don鈥檛 want to make people feel bad. I bristle because guilt is the worst way to get anyone to change their behavior. And most of all, I bristle because I am TOTALLY ABSOLUTELY NOT judging them.

Or maybe I am?

This has been my reckoning of the last few months. I鈥檝e been lying to myself a bit (and also lying to myself that I am self-aware, I guess!). I don鈥檛 want friends and fam to feel bad about their choices. I don鈥檛 explicitly tote up my peers鈥� carbon footprints, because it鈥檚 ABOUT THE SYSTEM, and everyone just has to live their life and forge this transition for themselves. But also… deep down, if I鈥檓 being honest with myself, I probably am judging them. Just as I judge myself for booking a flight or buying a bedazzled monster truck.

And I have to be OK with this perception of judgment. Because everyone can see it on my face. Each wrinkle marks a churlish appraisal.

I used to love travel and had always planned a future 鈥檙ound-the-world trek, in which I鈥檇 take my kids to see and complain about it all. But so many of the places that I鈥檇 planned to get to someday (, !) are places I now feel it鈥檚 pretty much unethical to visit. It鈥檚 a harsh take, and one that can instantly make a would-be jet-setter hate me forever, while telling me how said locality absolutely NEEDS our tourism dollars (um, no). Which is why I pretty much keep it to myself, unless asked for my opinions on travel influencers while being held at gunpoint. But there鈥檚 no point in hiding it if people sense I鈥檓 a judgy ogre anyway. And if I鈥檓 honest with myself, I do feel a pang of judginess when I see someone鈥檚 Hawai鈥�i pics. I鈥檇 really like to eat a shaved ice there with my kids, too.

What does it mean to own my judginess? I鈥檓 still not sure. I fear that friends will hide their travel from me, or not talk to me about their wanderlust! Which I don鈥檛 want. I want to hear about these places and these desires, and live vicariously through my friends鈥� adventures. And I want to think that it鈥檚 all still possible! I remember a time when travel was so rare that, when someone got back from a neat trip, we鈥檇 get out the slide projector to look at these images of places we鈥檇 only dream of going. I鈥檓… old? But it was beautiful (and occasionally tedious, depending on the skill of the photographer) to appreciate the infrequent and very special luxury of getting to transport yourself to a different part of the world. There was a reverence, too, because the traveler had thought long and hard about where they wanted to go.

I don鈥檛 want to go on a rant about how the very idea of carbon-intensive travel is new, and that the number of people with income enough to travel is just too great for the world to bear. I don鈥檛 want to tell people that low-carbon air travel is still a loooong way away, I don鈥檛 want to tell them that, by taking one flight, they鈥檝e contributed more to the overheating of the planet than 99% of all humans in history. I don鈥檛 want to tell them that the travel they enjoy today means  and a precarious future for my own children. I hate the person who says those things. Because those things suuuuuucccckkkk!!!! And, you know, I too dream of shaved ice in Hawai鈥�i someday.

I also don鈥檛 like this judginess because it falls into the  arena. Telling people they have to give up things is the surest way to get them to tune out, and it鈥檚 also not always true. Tackling the climate crisis is NOT about reduced quality of life. It鈥檚 just that the transitioning of hard-to-decarbonize sectors (like air travel) will take time鈥� and may require a modest change of lifestyle as we forge the alternative way. We鈥檙e in that middle space.

So where does that leave it all? I don鈥檛 know. But as the planet heats up, I want to be as forthright as I can be. And this internal/external disconnect does nothing useful for anyone. So I鈥檓 trying to own my judginess, and hoping that doing so doesn鈥檛 mean people Scarlet Letter me, avoiding me like the Bermuda Buzzkill that I am. 

This Week:

Can people intuit your climate judgments? Let me know!

Last Week:

How you doin鈥�? I got lots of lovely notes from people . I hope everyone is coping, and caring, and resting, and grieving, and coming back at it restored, with all the vim that you can muster!

What鈥檚 Enough?

The latest issue of 猫咪社区! Magazine is all about the concept of enough, and I can鈥檛 get enough of it (which seems wrong). Here鈥檚 my comic in which I posit that there鈥檚 no good word in the English language for that feeling of perfect satiation. People threw loads of suggestions at me on IG, and I particularly love  (thanks, dear Kate!)

People Dancing: 

My mum and her sisters started the International Folk Dancing night on Mont Royal in Montreal 50 years ago, and . What a cool thing! And my mom still goes! Love you, Mom!

Thanks so much for reading. If you like this newsletter, please feel free to subscribe, and share it.

Hope you are safe, happy, and healthy. Have a lovely weekend,
Sarah

P.S. This is my newsletter for the week of August 27, 2021, published in partnership with 猫咪社区! Media. You can sign up to get Minimum Viable Planet newsletter emailed directly to you at .