A life, a career, a world repurposed

What are you doing this Saturday?

Perhaps you're taking a stand to help slow climate change by participating in one of more than 4,000 actions in 170 countries being organized by 350.org. The number, as the organization will tell you, represents the parts per million of carbon dioxide thought to be the upper limit for avoiding runaway climate change (we are currently at 387 parts per million).

You can come to your own conclusions about whether or not to join these actions. As a journalist, perhaps I shouldn't attempt to sway you to action. However, it is also my responsibility to describe the world in which we live, to clearly present information and to sort through the distractions – both unintended and intended – that obscure the truth.

As my career has evolved, I have found myself increasingly drawn to exploring how society copes with the possibility of a changing environment from a political, scientific, sociological and cultural perspective. Many facets of contemporary life have an environmental component, including politics, the economy, culture and technology.

Much is made about the emergence of green technologies and there are great business stories to pursue revolving around sustainability, but there is so much more. Voters are making green issues a higher priority, cities are incorporating environmental standards and requirements in planning decisions, romantic partners are choosing to hold carbon-neutral weddings and environmental litigation and prosecutions are keeping many lawyers, and law enforcement personnel, busy.

There are many questions to be answered about the intersections of the environment and society. How do we as a society cope with the possibility of a changing climate and shifting availability of resources? How do environmental transitions affect society, politics, family and personal relationships? How do they affect our mythology and our beliefs? Humans tend to progress in crisis, or to change, to be at their best, and I would like to observe and document society's reaction to environmental shifts. How does a slow-moving crisis affect human behavior?

In recent years I've had discussions with my grandmother about her cousin, the journalist Melville Jacoby. Melville served as a correspondent in China and Southeast Asia in the 1930s and early 40s, eventually penning articles for outlets such as Time, Life and the United Press Syndicate at the onset of World War II. Melville was my age at the time — younger actually — yet he was so deeply immersed he reported from the midst of a narrow escape from the Philippines after the Japanese invasion and, earlier during his travels through China, became close to Chiang Kai-Shek. Killed at 25 in an accident in Australia in 1942, he left behind rich accounts of his life in the form of letters, dispatches and photos now in my grandmother's possession.

In exploring these accounts, I realize Melville played a central role telling stories about one small part of another great, global crisis. Perhaps the war was more romantic than the environmental movement's seemingly glacial pace, but both crises are the defining milieus of a particular generation. Like Melville, I want to chronicle my generation's response to its crisis.

When I applied to USC more than a year ago I wrote about how the shifting environment is fast becoming a global story, possibly the only global story, a point similar to one recently argued by Bill McKibben and other journalists. Back in the Spring of 2008 I argued that whether one accepts climate change as a preventable human crisis, or disagrees that it is a threat (or is caused by human activity), the mere discussion of the environment has global and local implications. If a shipping company invests in more efficient cargo jets because it expects to save money by stretching its fuel spending or does so because it perceives a public relations boost, that company is making a decision with tremendous impact on the environment. At a more local level, the city resident who uses a combination of bikes and mass transit to get to work because she realizes the reduction in her carbon footprint, or because she just cannot afford to purchase a car, will affect the environment either way. There is a difference in scale, but the outcome of either decision will impact many beyond the company and the young woman, altering the experiences and decisions of those additional parties.

Last night, I attended the monthly mixer of my local chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists. For the subway trip to the event, held in Downtown Los Angeles, I brought with me a copy of Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe. The book presents a stunning narrative of global climate change's impact. Rich with science, Field Notes remains a page-turner, as well-crafted as it is well-researched. “That,” I kept thinking as I read, “is the sort of work I should be doing.”

Yesterday, in a widely dissected event, the Yes Men satirized the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by pretending to represent the group at a press conference and announcing that the chamber had reversed its position on climate change. The event reminded me of the beauty of creative action. It also, coincidentally, sparked thoughts on the flaws in contemporary instant journalism, a subject that has been dissected in the Toronto Star and by Dana Milbank, as well as in a discussion I have been a part of on the SPJ's First Draft blog (and many other locations since I first drafted this post)

What all this reminds me is that I should be writing every day. I should be dissecting this problem and pouring my energy into it. I have the time. I have the preparation. I have the knowledge. I don't want to beat myself up too much, but I do have to acknowledge that if I want to chronicle my generation's great struggle as Melville did 70 years ago I can't wait for the story to come to me.

In recent months I've been applying to dozens of jobs. I've been trying to figure out my future. I've been pitching stories, writing cover letters and trying to identify myself, what I want and what I have to offer. I've been telling strangers why I matter to them and why only I can give them what they need. Meanwhile, I've been standing still, throwing things against the wall, rather than creating the world I want for myself. I don't say all this to draw attention to myself and my individual efforts. Instead, I say this because we cannot have the world we want unless we create it. It's that simple.