I grew up in Queens, NY in the fifties, in an area populated by many first generation American Jews, most of whose parents came from Eastern Europe. I am not sure how long cultivating intelligence has been part of my tribe, but it was a big deal when I was a kid. Education was deemed to be the way to counter the bigotry my people have faced since before the invention of matzoh. In the neighborhood, science and math were the only aptitudes worth a damn. I was comfortably ensconced on the bottom of the top in these disciplines.

The primary focus for the kids was intellect above all else. I had better than average social skills and was able to compensate for not being a genius by being popular. I don’t know, maybe it also forced me to look around for other avenues to bring their own rewards. I think it also cultivated a kind of peripheral vision, looking for the meaning of things.

Even though I gravitated to the back of class, I always believed in the sanctity of intellect. To me, the pursuit of science, looking for the reasons why things happen, is one of our highest attributes as humans. With the passage of time, the genius of artistic creativity and the exploration of our humanity, have grown to keep company with the power of intellect in my world.

I never felt I had any clear path to follow and was stuck with having to carve my own. There was no bright light to follow and it was easy to lose my footing, forcing me to go inside to find my way again and again. Consequently, I have never been a fan of popular thinking, uncomfortable being nose to butt with any herd.

Why, you may ask, is this on my mind at the moment? Would you believe climate change is the culprit? If you spend any time reading what science has to say about the looming calamity of our warming planet and its causes, it will give you pause. We are losing all sorts of species at an alarming rate as well. Within less than a hundred years, entire cities and countries will be under water.

According to all those scientists, who were always much smarter than me, our actions are responsible for this approaching cataclysm. I agree completely. However, as a strong believer in the value of this intellectual discipline, I also believe the science of our predictable behavior is based on the history of our behavior. There is no reason to think we are going to do what needs to be done in order to mitigate the horrific impacts of climate change.

From the time we shed most of our bodily hair, straightened our teeth and stopped dragging our knuckles on the ground and grunting, we have been on a trajectory without ever veering from it. We are at this juncture in our history, because it has always been the destiny of our species. The gluttonous accumulation of power and dominion over others and our natural world has been the mantra running through our minds, dictating our actions for ever.

This is a global crisis and piece meal solutions will feel good, but they will drown in a climate tsunami of this magnitude. Hundreds of millions of people are homeless and starving. Tribal and religious warfare is epidemic. Dictators and sons of dictators are stealing hundreds of millions of dollars, while their people starve. The most powerful countries are preoccupied with besting each other and the consequences of their actions are irrelevant. The gargantuan industries with the most to gain by maintaining the status quo are using their obscene powers to keep the world its prisoners, buying politicians, writing the rules and spreading disinformation to us all.

I tried to imagine a happy ending and thought about an awful science fiction novel as the only scenario. Planet Earth is a global community, with a supreme leader, King Salmon. He rules over a massive network of self-sustained communities, joined together by the app, WhatsUp? The word poverty is not even in the dictionary. People are trained and educated according to aptitude. Profit is defined by benefitting as many Earthlings as possible. The accumulation of wealth at the expense of others is a crime and perpetrators are banished to Cleveland. I’d keep going, but it is such a lousy plot and I haven’t even gotten to the Beyond Burger part yet.

Coming back to reality calls upon the compensatory skills I developed, while sitting in the back of the classroom of the gifted students. I believe with all my heart it is important for us to try and make a difference, even if we can’t. In the midst of all the stupid shit we have been doing for millennia, there have always been angels amongst us. It’s those other qualities I was talking about in the beginning. Art grows into view, like the lily in the mud pond. Poetry can always be heard above the noise of our incivility. Good story draws our eyes away from the ugly.

Over the course of too many decades, I have come to be awestruck by the grace we are capable of exhibiting. I don’t even know his name or remember exactly when it happened, but I think of that young boy staring down the tank in Tiananmen Square. This battle with the dire consequences of climate change can’t be about winning, because we won’t, rather it has to be about the best parts of us as human beings. Future generations will learn to live with this legacy and life will go on, albeit with all its limitations, because that is our genius.