The loneliness of climate change, part two: the less lonely spreadsheet edition!

I made a thing! Please contribute--and share!

I suppose it’s no surprise that writing about the loneliness of climate change turned out to be a nice way to feel a bit less lonely. Since my last post, back in October, I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends and colleagues who were feeling a lot like I was: helpless, frustrated, and disconnected, but also motivated and eager to take action. One of the things that I discovered in these conversations was that my friends had a lot of knowledge and ideas—but there was no central resource for sharing that knowledge.

So I made one. I guess it really is my baseball diamond in a cornfield.

Behold! A spreadsheet! Please click through to see the whole thing.

It’s nothing fancy—just a big spreadsheet that anyone can contribute to. (Romantic shoutout to my spreadsheet-loving life partner who helped me make this thing both functional and nice-looking!) The goal is to have a shared resource that folks can turn to for suggestions on everything from where to refill your hand soap to how to support sustainable agriculture.

Because it seems easier to have a meaningful impact locally, I’ve made this one Vancouver-specific. There is a second sheet that is non-Vancouver-specific, with recommendations for books, podcasts, online communities and stuff like that (this one especially needs your contributions). If you live somewhere else and like what I’ve made, I would encourage you to copy my sheet and start one for your own community. If you have feedback on how I can make this better, please share it.

And if you are, like me, feeling occasionally bereft or despairing or numb about The State of Things when it comes to climate (or, you know, basic human rights and democracy), here are some small, joyful things you can do right now:

• add a recommendation to this spreadsheet (a favorite podcast or book or, if you live in Vancouver, a favorite thrift store or maker space)

• cancel Amazon Prime (it’s liberating, I promise!) and join your local Buy Nothing Group

• support a small, local eco-friendly businesses or community organization (a bunch are listed here—feel free to add more!)

• share this spreadsheet with a friend who might use or contribute to it

• make your own climate action spreadsheet or newsletter or BlueSky feed or monthly potluck

• send me your spreadsheet or newsletter or BlueSky feed and I will share it!

Even though I made this, it isn’t my thing. It is a community resource that belongs to anyone who wants to access and contribute and share. I’m hoping it will take on a life of its own without me. As you’ll see, I’ve logged some hours filling this thing in, but there’s still so much room for recommendations.

I’ll be back with a full length newsletter soon. But in the meantime, I’m sharing a piece I wrote for the excellent BC online news magazine The Narwhal back in December: “Make friends, prepare for climate change: ‘Your neighbors are your first responders.’” This feels like the beginning of more thinking and writing on the intersection of loneliness and climate:

A statistic I frequently come across in climate writing is that 75 per cent of the infrastructure we’ll use in 2050 has yet to be built. This number is often cited to inspire designers, urban planners and policy makers to dream big about building communities that are more just and more resilient in the face of a changing climate. Rethinking our roads, transit systems, green spaces and energy grids is essential. But, in this moment of flux, we also have the opportunity to build a more robust and resilient social infrastructure.

Whenever I start to feel despair about the future, this is the idea I return to: that we are the ones who get to build it, that moments of crisis are also moments of possibility.

Yours,

Mandy