大象传媒

The Finite Pool of Worry:

Because people have a limited capacity for how many issues they can worry about at once, as worry increases about one type of risk, concern about other risks may lessen. .

It鈥檚 such a beautiful little phrase. The Finite Pool of Worry. I think about it often, especially when I realize that I鈥檓 not worrying about climate because I鈥檓 fretting about things much closer to home, like work, my children鈥檚 health, or whether we have enough bland, orange cheese in the fridge to keep my son eating. COVID-19 is a perfect example of how we have little choice in what consumes our finite pool of worry, and why climate always gets the short end of the body of water.

If there鈥檚 a tiny glimmer of something to be learned from all this horribleness, it鈥檚 how emotional the decisions are regarding our finite pools of worry. COVID-19 is enveloping us emotionally, and amplifying our more quotidian concerns as well. Of course there鈥檚 no room for anything else. There鈥檚 barely room for climate when we 补谤别苍鈥檛&苍产蝉辫;consumed with worldwide pandemic. Those trying to inject it into the current conversation seem woefully out of step with what it means to be a human right now.

Announcement: I'll keep tweeting about electric vehicles and mobility stuff. Doesn't mean I'm not concerned, just staying in my lane.
Also, thank you to doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers worldwide. You are incredible.

— Colin Mckerracher (@colinmckerrache)

Which is not to say that it鈥檚 not worth thinking through COVID + climate. It鈥檚 just that rhapsodizing about reduced emissions because of contagion isn鈥檛 that helpful. These are not sustainable reduced emissions. We鈥檝e reduced emissions before during a crisis, and they always just creep back up.

But back to these melancholy pools of angst. Perhaps the most useful thing about this crisis is it鈥檚 providing us an opportunity to engage with our worry, to itemize the things that make our hearts race the most. With few places to go, we have more time to really think through the anxieties. And with COVID-19 at the top, my extremely irrational fears of clowns, crime procedurals, and conga lines have all but dropped off the list. Though perhaps I should keep conga lines in the pool, given all that physical contact.

The lovely Joanna Goddard of Cup of Jo posted  a few days ago, and it鈥檚 a quite wonderful piece of behavioural science. In a nutshell, it鈥檚 all about imagining positive outcomes, rather like  from Christiana Figueres鈥� book that I mentioned last week. Envisioning a positive future doesn鈥檛 mean ignoring risk and worry or suppressing fear, but it does give hope and strength…and can galvanize fruitful action. Things could be OK, or even better than OK.

It can be tough to distance ourselves. As the brilliant academic (and co-originator of the FPoW) Elke Weber writes:

We enjoy congregating; we need to know we are part of groups,鈥� Weber said. 鈥淚t gives us inherent pleasure to do this. And when we are reminded of the fact that we鈥檙e part of communities, then the community becomes sort of the decision-making unit. That鈥檚 how we make huge sacrifices, like in World War II.

But unlike WWII, we鈥檙e being told to not come together physically. Which doesn鈥檛 mean we can鈥檛 convene digitally, sending each other less physical equivalents of love and support like custom emojis. . How beautiful is this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDu_kLJ-5Mk

THIS WEEK

In the words of Drake, Take Care! 

I hope you all have the support you need. I hope you鈥檙e making cookies and reading good books, taking care of loved ones, and being taken care of by loved ones, and getting help if you need it. 

Sarah

P.S. As I walked home from dropping my daughter off at what will be her last day of school for three weeks, a pulse of sun suddenly cut through the blanket of gray. Wishing you sunbreaks!

Folks in Seattle have a term I loved when I lived there: "sunbreak."

A sunbreak is a moment when sunshine breaks through the rainy gray skies of winter, briefly reminding everyone that the Earth orbits a fiery wonderball of heat and light.

Keep an eye out for sunbreaks, folks.

— Alex Steffen (@AlexSteffen)

P.P.S. Many thanks to Ben, whose newsletter you should check out, as a .

P.P.P.S. I鈥檓 always curious to know what you think. This is my newsletter for the week of March 13, 2020, published in partnership with 大象传媒 Media You can sign up to get Minimum Viable Planet newsletter emailed directly to you at .