o·cean/ˈōSHən/ [noun]: The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth’s water.

The climate crisis as we see it today, in its already terrifying form, is but the chilling echo and the rumbling vibrations of a future which is rapidly steaming our way. To ignore those who must pick through debris in the wake of a hurricane to find belongings and rebuild their lives, or those escaping gunfire in regions of escalating tension as resources become scarce, fail to understand that the roof above their head is nothing, the food which they eat immaterial, and the lives they lead artificial and with an expiration date, in our coming present. We have only relatively recently begun to adopt the perspective which allows us to view this world as a finite system and as a home which quite literally grants us life. It is a roof over our heads which, if preserved, is plentiful and knows how to sustain itself. We are, as many have said before, passengers on a ship hurtling through space, but remarkably such an advanced ship that by merely existing and learning basic life skills in the natural environment each living organism is a capable and contributing crew member. These skills are built in us as well and grant us a home in an immensely, unbelievably forbidding cosmos. We who have existed in lives saturated by technology fail perhaps to realize how much of the Earth’s natural environment remains central, and critical to, our existence. It is not difficult for us to imagine, whether through science fiction or news from NASA and SpaceX, of the possibility of transitioning to artificial environments such as space stations or lunar bases. Perhaps it is our hubris that speaks then, when we implicitly claim that we can abandon the color of our sky, a color which is not blue but nameless and which will not be preserved by any camera or any statistic, nor even in the best attempts of poets. Or perhaps it is our hubris that speaks then, when we implicitly suggest that we could survive without the untainted sea, its infinite sounds that leave us mesmerized at its edge, its infinite mystery which will last forever. Perhaps we have experimented too much with apocalypse. Perhaps we have seen that the human soul can flourish even in the pits of darkness, and are willing to accept a new world of this form.

As we begin to approach the end of our world, the end of familiar familiarity and familiar mystery, I feel inclined to draw from the reams of history collectively experienced by my spiritual community, the Jewish people. I think of being displaced from one’s home and to have wandered and to have experienced peace replaced by the most unimaginable insanity for which there are no words nor means of survival. Are we, as a species, willing to lose our home and subject ourselves to be wanderers in an alien land? Are we prepared to face adversities and suffering to which, in our histories, we have no comparable example? I would say we are not, and those who say otherwise have too much faith in the engineering and the minds which brought us to this point. And yet, we need this engineering and these minds now more than ever to steer the ship away. But towards what? What future do we seek? That is the power of a free people, to ask such a question. And to think that, in several years, such a question would not be ours to ask.