How to have a good afterlife, by the Green Fix

Death, and everything that comes afterwards.

I’ve been thinking a lot about life cycles.

My mum died a couple of weeks ago. 

It feels like an ending. It is an ending. That sense of a definitive conclusion is part of what makes death a hard truth to swallow.

I’m taking a step back and looking at this loss as part of a bigger cycle.

When one thing ends, another always begins.

Endings set new things in motion. Monumental events have an outward ripple effect.

My mum’s things will become reabsorbed into the world and begin new life cycles: clothes sent to charity shops, decorations transformed into items of commemoration, books borrowed and reread by others. I wear her watch now. In graveyards, flowers bloom.

The outcome of one life redistributed into countless other lives. 

As material remnants of our lives are recycled into the world, so are the intangible things. Wishes, expectations and memories are recycled into the actions and emotions of those left behind.

Loss makes you angry, makes you religious, sets you free. Cut loose from worry about the mundanities of everyday life, a new chain reaction begins. Grief and heartbreak have driven people to do sad things, terrible things, brilliant things.

To me, this is afterlife. Life driving life after life after life.

Perhaps I’m just conditioned to see everything through a lens of environmentalism. Perhaps I’ve just got carried away with the reduce reuse recycle mantra.

Their garden, left to its own devices for a while.

But as I sit on the Eurostar to Brussels on my way to quarantine post-travel for the third time in two months, I stare at my (bad) coffee and think how this last-minute takeaway cup will outlive any living memory of me. And the triviality of the truth feels suddenly monstrous.

This isn’t the legacy I want. The physical detritus of my life should not remain permanently there. We are meant to fade and regenerate into new life, not haunt. I want to pass on knowledge, and values, and break down barriers, not create them.

I will never see all the nature that existed when my mum was born, and I don’t think I will be able to show tomorrow’s children all the animals I saw when I was a child. What life will bloom in a plastic and polluted wasteland?

Anxiety about the future is rampant. Hopelessness is mainstream. Giving up is easy.

But I believe we are not doomed. This is not the only way to be. We know how to live lives that were self-sustaining. We learned it through the generations, for centuries. We have that knowledge. And we have new technologies now. The environmental debt of our lifestyles is not a sad inevitability. And I reject it.

Terrible things happen. Our mothers die. Forests burn. Oil spills into the sea. But no matter how we feel about it, nature presses on and dawn breaks the next morning.

Nature, still doing its thing.

And we still get up. And each time that we do wake, we open the opportunity to set a new cycle in motion. To make a good thing happen. To win a small victory for truth, solidarity and justice. To cut through the noise.

What other way is there to be, really? To create a good future you have to open yourself to failure and hurt. If I live openly, vulnerably, and in pursuit of a better future, then I have faith that, like my mum, my death will not herald darkness, but just the birthing pains of new beginnings. Life after life.

In the spirit of setting more good things in motion, I want to use this Green Fix for a long list of opportunities to make tomorrow better than today. In the face of one ending, here are 11 potential beginnings.

The Green Fix will return to its regular format next edition. The news is at the end of this email.

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Opportunities

EVENTS

• Join Friends of the Earth for their Groundswell summit from 11-13 June for a series of online events and talks on climate justice.

• Tune into the upcoming seminar from 18th - 20th June on how you can make a tangible difference to the climate crisis. Run by the youth action network SAME.

THINGS TO APPLY FOR

• Enter your images for the 2021 Global Peace Photo Award by the 23rd May.

• The Youth & Environment Europe network are looking for volunteer Regional Coordinators! Interested? Apply by the 31st May.

• The UN and an art activism platform have put out a call for artwork reflecting global action towards a decarbonised world. Submit yours by 31st May.

• The Ecology Film Festival is looking for submissions on the theme of protecting nature. Deadline 1st June.

• Under 25? The Goi Peace Foundation is accepting entries for their annual essay competition until the 15th June. This year’s theme: ‘What is life?’

• Living in Scotland? The 2050 Climate Group is looking for applications for their Young Leaders’ Development Programme. Apply before 17th June.

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP OTHERS

• Sign the petition calling for a People’s Vaccine - available to everyone for free, everywhere.

• Get involved in the UN’s #GenerationRestoration campaign with their free toolkit to restore nature.

• Sign the Y7 Youth Delegates Call to Action ahead of the G7 meeting, demanding policies that protect future generations and involve youth in decision-making.

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What’s Going On?

• Three youth activists are taking the UK government to court for their continued financing of the climate crisis and failure to tackle it.
  Related: Support their legal action here.

• India deals with devastating surge of Covid-19 infections.
  Related: How to help during India’s COVID surge.

• Activists in Bangladesh have launched the Green New Deal campaign to call on the government to step up efforts for 100% renewable energy by 2050.
  Useful: How is the climate crisis affecting Bangladesh?

• In 2020, global renewable energy grew at fastest pace in two decades, according to the International Energy Agency.
  Useful: What is clean energy?

• Nature-based solutions could help cool the planet - if we act now.
  Relevant: Case study UK report on how nature-based solutions can fight climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Stay in the loop

I share updates on the Green Fix, polls and additional resources on Instagram @coffee_and_casstaways. You can also say hi on Twitter.

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