Climate Connections: Sitting in for Doris

Our friend Doris is taking a brief break from this column. She adores sharing the connections she sees between climate change and our daily lives. She encourages us to make simple changes in our lives, to help make this Island more climate-friendly. 

Doris does it with a sweetness, like honey, which makes it easy to swallow. My goal, as I sit in for her, is to take her lead, and try to avoid getting all intense and climate-preachy.

I am a professional worrier. I have been in training since childhood. Now, all day every day, I worry about the climate crisis. It is my job. But it is also a passion — I have a strange, built-in need to understand what changes are coming our way, so we can successfully prepare for them. 

I worry about big things like our eroding beaches, the key to our economy on a summer resort island. I worry about how the heat is affecting our health, and if we are prepared for the coming health impacts. I am part of a team working to address these things.

I am concerned about how worried we all are about climate change. In 2022, when the Vineyard Climate Action Plan was being developed, we invited two eco-anxiety specialists to speak about climate change fears. They offered two pieces of advice that really hit home with me:

• Connect with nature.
• Take action.

Connect with nature 

I worry that we humans forget we are part of the natural world, just one of millions of species trying to survive on this planet. It is our lack of connection to the natural world that caused the climate crisis. We have polluted the earth, our home, and relied for too long on deadly fossil fuels. It is a good idea to reconnect, to inhale the natural world, and take note of our precarious place in it. Doing so gives us cause to care, and can help us find the inspiration to act. 

Come hot, muggy, crowded August, I load up on fresh, locally grown tomatoes and corn. I could eat them for every meal all month long. They are fresh and sun-soaked. They taste like actual tomatoes and corn, not the cardboard-flavored vegetables we have grown used to that are flown here from around the world. They remind me that our food is part of the natural world. It is so easy to lose that connection, to grab food off the grocery shelves without thinking about the soil, rain, sun, and people who bring us the food we need to live.

I try to walk or ride my bike every day, to soak up the natural beauty that surrounds us and to breathe in the salt air. It is a good break from a busy day, physically, mentally, and even spiritually.

I am working to undo my suburban upbringing. I try to learn the names of the native plants in the garden, instead of calling them all “I’ll ask Steve” (my husband, the gardener). Recently I even clipped some of our flowers to give to a friend (and no, I cannot name them). The bees and other creatures in the yard are not a bother, they are the web of life. Rain is a blessing, not a nuisance.

It is not hard to connect with nature on this amazing Island. Yet sometimes it is easy to forget to do so. It is worth the effort, though, to remind ourselves of our place in the bigger picture. And it feels good.

Take action

Because I am in the climate change business, I could make myself crazy trying to be a perfect action-taker. But there is no such thing as perfection. It boils down to making positive decisions and acting on them. And really, doing so makes you feel better. 

My husband and I rent the solar panels on our roof. We could not afford to buy them outright, so we pay a rental fee. But our electric bill is zero, and our energy source is now renewable. 

I still drive a gas-powered car. When the time comes for a new car, I will buy electric. I gave up a credit card that was linked to a bank that finances fossil fuels. All it took to find out was a Google search. I use laundry sheets instead of buying a big old plastic tub of detergent. I try to buy clothes made of natural fibers, instead of synthetic materials that contain microplastics — those teeny-tiny bits of plastic that we breathe in every day. 

I went to Catholic school, and had to wear a uniform. It took me a long time to get in a fashion groove. Now I need to undo my T.J.Maxx addiction. This is a big challenge for me, but the fashion world is a huge contributor to the greenhouse gases that are heating up the planet. Trying is the least I can do. 

I try to buy less of everything, because most of what we buy is either made of or with fossil fuels. And we really do not need a lot of the stuff we buy. Shopping has become a hobby, a national pastime. We Americans are super-consumers. We call it retail therapy, but it does not actually make us healthier, it just gives us a brief surge of pleasure.

The climate crisis is real, and frightening, and worldwide. Does what we do on a tiny speck of an Island really matter? Yes. Every positive thing we do makes a difference, and taking action is empowering. If you have climate change fears — and I worry if you do not — taking action is the best way to face them. 

And since we are the species who got us all into this mess, we have an obligation to be better stewards of this earth (too preachy?). 

Give it a shot. Embrace your oneness with the natural world, make some positive decisions, and act on them. Let’s do it for Doris. 

Liz Durkee, filling in for Doris Ward, July 2024.