“We equate moving forward with things getting worse. When you see the future, all you see is decline, which means you are not motivated to do anything. You feel paralyzed.”
Writer and artist Jenny Odell. Photo: Chani Bockwinkel
In her latest book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, Jenny Odell argues that we live in a society that has structured time for profit, not for people, and that the concept that "time is money" has made our planet sick. She is particularly interested in how this assumption is interwoven into our ecological crisis. She takes umbrage with how the language that “time is running out” is leveraged to encourage people to take action now.
“'The ‘we’re running out of time’ framing conveys urgency, but it also puts the problem in the future as if it’s coming toward you as this grim inevitability,' she said, noting this ignores that climate change is already affecting people. 'The reaction is often paralysis and fear.'
"As a result, people turn inward, bracing for the impact of a future calamity rather than preparing for the one we’re already living through where wildfires burn villages to the ground and where extreme weather from climate change is already killing an estimated 5 million lives a year. Instead, it is more useful to view ourselves as having been born into the climate crisis.
“'When I think about it as something already unfolding, I lose some of the dread and resistance to thinking about it,' she said. 'When I’m not anticipating it in the future, I can think about how I can respond to it creatively today.'” - Mélissa Godin
Article: Jenny Odell Is Reimagining Time to Tackle Climate Change
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