Wednesday, October 23, 2019 // The Statement
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Wednesday, October 23, 2019 // The Statement
I

’ve always liked to think I’d know what to do during 
an apocalypse. 
I read exclusively dystopian novels growing up 
— Divergent, Delirium, The Hunger Games, The Maze 
Runner, The City of Ember, The 5th Wave, Station Eleven, 
The Handmaid’s Tale — so I figured I was well-read on the 
subject. Through these books, I thought I already knew how 
it felt to experience societal collapse — the rush of surviving 
the initial fall, defending myself with a weapon I found on 
the street, running from the zombies or possessed humans 
or crazed religious extremists, the secret escape plan, the 
group of unlikely friends, the inevitable unknown. It was 
interesting, traumatic, exhilarating.
At least, I thought this was how it would unfold. Then I 
learned about climate change.
The real-life apocalypse doesn’t happen all at once; instead 
of using gas and a lighter, we’ve set the world on fire with a 
single spark that’s grown too large for us to escape. It’s just 
subtle enough that it’s never urgent or breaking news. We 
think we can sweep it under a rug, turn around to focus on 
something else, and before we know it we’re trapped in the 
flames.
I recently tried rekindling my love for dystopian novels 
with a book called “History of Bees”, which describes a 
future after our bees become extinct. I would spoil it and 
say it doesn’t end well for humans, but I couldn’t even get 
through the first chapter describing a woman pollinating 
crops by hand to survive. Just thinking about this not-so-
dystopian future felt like its own act of labor. 
The book still sits on my shelf as a reminder, or maybe a 
threat. It’s hard not to feel personally responsible for climate 
change when I know humans are the direct cause. Today, 
extreme weather is the most common way people experience 
climate change, but the under-the-rug crisis could arguably 
be more alarming. We’ve killed 50 percent of the world’s 
coral in the last three decades. Sea levels are rising. The 
Arctic is rapidly warming. We rely on bees to pollinate crops 
for 90 percent of the world, but 
environmental changes 
are making them die faster.
While 
we’ve 
been 
policing 
ourselves 
to 
do 
better 
with 
our 
vegan 
diets 
and sustainable clothing 
brands, 71 percent of global 
carbon 
emissions 
since 
1988 are directly linked 
to just 100 firms. Climate 
activists are quite literally 
carrying the burden of the 
world on their shoulders, 
shouting at each other at 
rallies to do more 

and do better, when the biggest culprit of climate change is 
systemic greed. It’s the CEOs who refuse to sacrifice revenue 
for sustainable practices, the government officials who make 
it easier for firms to pollute with minimal consequences, 
and the universities (including the University of Michigan) 
that still have over $1 billion invested in fossil fuels despite 
students calling for action.
Climate change will affect younger and minority 
populations more than it will affect the older and richer, 
who are typically the drivers of the crisis. Those in power 
have no reason to limit carbon emissions this year, or any 
year before the crisis is irreversible in 2030, as they will 
either be gone or rich enough to still live comfortably. The 
rest of us become fighting crayfish in an aquarium, while the 
culprits watch us drown from the other side of the glass.
Thinking about all of this on a daily basis really does 
feel like drowning. Is the crisis out of my hands, or is it my 
responsibility to somehow hold those in power accountable 
for their actions? How do I even do that?
Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old environmental activist 
from Sweden, calls for us to be angry, to skip school and 
fight, while others say to start preparing for our inevitable 
indolence. It seems like everyone and no one is talking about 
it simultaneously — climate change wasn’t mentioned once 
during the Democratic presidential debate in October but 
it’s all I see when I open my Twitter feed or talk with my 
friends.
@ScottWesterfeld tweeted on March 20, 2014:
Plot idea: 97% of the world’s scientists contrive an 
environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of 
billionaires & oil companies.
@StephenAtHome tweeted on November 19, 2014:
Global warming isn’t real because I was cold today! Also 
great news: World hunger is 
over because I just 
ate.
I tweeted on January 31, 
2019:
me during the 2014 
polar vortex:
*snowflake emoji* it’s 

too cold outside for angels to fly *music notes emoji* 
me during the 2019 polar vortex:
OUR 
RESOURCES 
ARE 
DIMINISHING, 
THE 
GOVERNMENT IS IN SHAMBLES, AND CLIMATE 
CHANGE IS MAKING THE SEASONS MORE EXTREME. 
WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE!
I 

made a rule with my roommate that we can only have 
“nihilist hours” after midnight. Every night, we go 
through the same routine: she comes home from class, 
I put on Maggie Rogers and scratch her head while she lays 
in my lap, and one of us usually has an existential crisis to 
discuss. Which, without fail, will bring us to climate change.
We both have a bad habit of referencing the issue at 
inappropriate times. “I’d love to travel more when I retire. 
Too bad we’ll all be gone from climate change,” she’ll say. “I 
wonder what my kids would be like, you know, if we 
actually had time to raise kids,” I’ll say.
“Bringing another human into the world 
is the worst thing you can do for the 
environment,” we both joke. But it isn’t 
really a joke.
To save our mental health, I made a 
rule that we could only save this mindset 
for after midnight. Neither 
of us obey it very well.
The more I learned 
about 
climate 
change, the more 
I 
felt 
myself 
subconsciously 
dissociating 

from things that brought me joy. I convinced myself that 
because I wouldn’t have a future, I didn’t need to form new 
relationships or continue my passions. I regretted trying so 
hard in the past. The threat surrounded me so frequently 
that I believed the world would start burning at any given 
moment, and the only way I could cope was making dark, 
nothing-matters-anymore comments in person and on social 
media that concerned everyone around me.
I thought it would be better this way, to protect myself 
from forming close relationships or finding a new passion or 
getting married and having kids. After all, the more you have 
before the apocalypse, the more you have to lose when it hits. 
(Or at least that’s what happened in The Handmaid’s Tale.)
But it’s possible that climate change won’t affect our 
generation until the end of our lifetimes, so why was it 
bothering me now?
I’m not alone in feeling this “eco-anxiety” — young people 
all over the country are choosing not to have kids because 
of climate change. Some are dropping everything to become 
climate activists and others are somewhere stuck in the 
middle, like myself and my roommate.
She expressed to me recently, “I have nowhere to relieve 
my anger, my sadness, my disappointment, my dread, and my 
fear. We don’t have systems set up to help us process that.”
Other students at the University of Michigan feel similarly 
— Music, Theatre & Dance senior Alissa Martin feels a 
looming guilt that she must constantly be learning about and 
working against climate change.
“It feels like my generation’s responsibility to turn the 
crisis around, but it’s a responsibility none of us asked for, 
and the stakes are so high that the pressure can be truly 
taxing,” Martin said. “To be completely honest, when I start 
thinking about the future of the planet, I often shut down the 
thoughts because it’s overwhelming — and then immediately 
feel horrible for doing so. It feels like avoiding the elephant 
in the room in favor of smaller, more immediate stressors.”
But even those who do make the effort to learn about the 
crisis are still burdened with the same anxieties; Martin 
considered dropping her environmental studies class this 
semester because the depressing statistics were so mentally 
exhausting.
Learning about the end of the world can be especially 
draining for those majoring in environmental studies and 
are faced with this reality every day in and out of their 
classes. Evan Hammon and Camilla Lizundia, both seniors 
studying Program in the Environment, agreed they found it 
difficult to stay hopeful for rapid change. Yet, despite it all, 
they’re both able to cultivate love and joy.
“My mind can often spiral,” Lizundia said. “But with 

darkness, there is light. The irony is that if our world was 
not in peril, I wouldn’t seek to see the beauty that still exists. 
The trees speak to me, and their voices give me hope in my 
moments of despair. They cleanse my soul and restore my 
power to persist in achieving positive climate action.”
Hammon remarked how important it is to him to look 
for the beauty in his friends, the 
earth and strong leaders that 
are working to make a positive 
impact. 
Other 
students 
expressed 
similar methods of healing: LSA 
senior Alexandra Niforos said 
she tries to maximize her time 
doing the things she loves. Hailey 
Martin, a sophomore at Loyola 
University Chicago, decided to 
stop feeling guilty and channel 
her fear into making a more 
sustainable lifestyle. Veronica 
Stafford, 
a 
senior 
studying 
chemistry at Stanford University, 
has started to focus on her 
appreciation for the resources we 
have rather than what we’ve lost.
Hearing from these students 
has 
made 
me 
understand 
something my existential dread 
wasn’t ready to grasp: You can’t 
stop living because you’re afraid 
of dying. In fact, it just might be 
the reason to lean into love more 
than ever.
W

hat I loved most 
about dystopian novels wasn’t 
experiencing the apocalypse itself, but the 
intense passion the characters found despite the complete 
inversion of society. Every book had a love storyline: Katniss 
and Peeta in The Hunger Games, who chose each other 
when they were supposed to be hunting each other; Lina and 
Alex in Delirium, who hid their relationship from a society 
where love is prohibited; Evan in The 5th Wave, who falls for 
Cassie despite being possessed by an alien who wants to kill 
her; Kirsten in Station Eleven, who pursues her passion for 
theatre by performing Shakespeare plays even after the flu 
wipes out the population.
Though reading these novels didn’t tactically prepare me 
for how to survive the apocalypse, they did teach me the 
importance of love and relationships in unsettling times. 

My roommate once told me we need to be around people 
who are just as confused as we are to survive. I think she’s 
right. Love is what’s left even after everything else is gone, 
and cultivating that joy in the age of climate change is in 
itself an act of resistance.
This resistance is just as much about relationships as it is 
about self-love. Our practices should be sustainable both for 
the environment and for ourselves; in the same way eating 
red meat isn’t sustainable for the environment, nihilistic 
thoughts aren’t progressive for our well-being. It only 
distances ourselves from the real impact we could have if we 
could recognize ourselves as more than just a crayfish in a 
tank.
I’m inspired by the incredible youth advancements in 
climate activism. In addition to Greta Thunberg’s huge 
impact, Liza Goldberg, a high school senior, is working at 
NASA to map out the global effects of climate change. Young 
activists of color are fighting climate change and advocating 
for marginalized communities: Jamie Margolin, a queer, 
Jewish, Latina activist is working for indigenous rights 
and against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest; Isra 
Hirsi, the 16-year-old daughter of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, 
D-Minneapolis, is working as the co-executive director of 
the U.S. Youth Climate Strike; and Mari Copeny, a 12-year-
old activist from Flint is bringing attention to the water 
crisis and the systemic effects of environmental racism. 
These are just a few names of hundreds, if not thousands, 
who give me hope.
For the rest of us who can’t 
completely devote our lives to 
climate activism, education 
will make us more powerful, 
despite how difficult it is to 
digest the information. We 
can change your actions on a 
small scale. Nature can heal 
us while it’s still here.
I often find myself saying 
I’m “burned out.” Burned out 
from imagining a hopeless 
future, burned out from not 
knowing how to fix things, 
burned out from scrolling 
through Twitter until my 
thumbs are sore. 
But 
the 
sensation 
of 
“burning” is one rooted in 
passion. As the ethereal 
witch goddess and singer-
songwriter Maggie Rogers 
sings in “Burning, “And if 
you’re giving up, would you 
tell me? / I’m gonna keep 
this love if you let me. In 
the chorus, she belts, Let 
me help you open up / I’m 
in love, I’m alive / Oh, I’m 
burning.”
In a time when everything seems to be on fire, it is 
healing to focus on the good kinds of burning. The burning 
passion. The burning love. The burning hope. Even burning 
discomfort can be a sign of growth.
So, if you’re going to be making any lifestyle changes 
because of climate change, make sure you harvest this 
sustainable burning. Keep that love and hold it close. Lean 
into your relationships and the things that bring you joy. 
Plant the seeds now and watch them grow while they’re able. 
And if the apocalypse really does come, someday, then let 
it come knowing you’ve loved — and lost — as much as you 
possibly can. Because that will be the only way to prepare.

BY HANNAH BRAUER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

Modern Love: When we 
set the world on fire, will 
you burn out with it?

The more I learned 
about climate change, 
the more I felt myself 
subconsciously 
dissociating from things 
that brought me joy.

