When will I despair

"I do not want this to be a column arguing for despair. No emotion is more useless, and it’s wrong at any rate. If we fail to keep warming below the longtime global goal of 2 degrees Celsius, well, 2 degrees remains better than 2.5. And 2.5 is far preferable to 3. And humanity would much rather have 3 than 3.5. And so on, and so forth. There is no point at which giving up makes more sense than fighting on." - It Seems Odd That We Would Just Let the World Burn 

 I have to say, I have been despairing lately. Even though I am flying to Oregon in less than two weeks, a part of me is sure that the town that I grew up in is gone, totally gone, remade by a new climate. I think this feeling is maybe a little much. I think the trees are still tall and their canopies still wide. Even though the blueberries and blackberries are ripe a month earlier than they were when I was a child, they are still blue, still black, still in the back yard and along the roads.

I was telling myself Ezra's argument yesterday, when I was very sad. But I am not working to defend the global average temperature. I am working to defend the clear summer days. I am working to save the forests near my parents' house. I want there to be water in the lakes. Eventually, these goals will no longer be in reach. Maybe the summer days are already gone. I don't know if it will be at 2 degrees or 3 degrees, but when the rest is gone, what will I be working for? I know all of this is terribly selfish. There are people who are refugees because of climate change - they aren't mourning at 10% change in the growing season (actually maybe that is a big part of the problem!) or the trees that would have become logs anyways. 

When I see the West Coast again and it still looks like home, maybe I'll want to work again.