Building Our Capacity for Trust

Summary

I am not speaking anything new when I say that our level of collective anxiety may be higher than at any point in the last 50 years. The sources of our collective anxiety are many.

• Example: 4 million acres have burned on the west coast, with a gigafire called the “August Complex” raging in northern California.[1] What does such destruction tell us about climate change, and what does it portend for our future?
• Example: Among persons of African-American heritage, a collective grief has arisen over police brutality and legal injustice, which is so deep that it can hardly be expressed.[2]

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/07/northern-california-fire-is-now-a-gigafire-a-rare-designation-for-a-blaze-that-burns-at-least-a-million-acres/

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/arts/elizabeth-alexander-george-floyd-video-protests.html