A Christmas Carol for Our Time
A Christmas Carol for Our Time
Charles Dickens is one of England's most loved writers even though he produced much of his work over 150 years ago, the stories still retain appeal and relevance today. The world in which Dickens lived, Victorian London, would have looked quite familiar to inhabitants of many parts of the world today: great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few successful merchants and land-owners, great numbers of poor, even destitute people huddled into cramped lining conditions earning poor wages doing dirty and often dangerous jobs. Dickens himself had a job while still only a boy, spending 10 hours a day sticking labels onto tins of polish to earn money to help keep the family while his father was in debtor's prison. He used his early experiences to good effect in his latter writing and much it reflects on the hardships of the working class life.
One of his most popular works is "A Christmas Carol", a tale of morality and redemption that, for many, captures the true spirit of Christmas. Thinking about the world on a global basis, it seems it still has many of the same characteristics of Victorian London, so how would the tale be told today? Is there a message here to help us find solutions to global warming?
The name Scrooge has passed into the language to mean miserly but Dickens' description of him is much worse; "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." What is usually forgotten, though, is that he had a fairly successful firm (although he had lost his partner some years earlier) and had no need to be so tight-fisted. If reminded of this, his response tended to "Bah! Humbug". In this way, we can see Scrooge as the ordinary citizen of the developed world; there is no evidence that people are much happier with the material wealth that has been generated over the past 50 years and, if the topic of global warming ever makes it into ordinary conversation, the response of "Bah! Humbug!" is an all too common one.
When Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his partner, Jacob Marley, he wears a chain of his own making; "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will" says Marley's ghost, reminding us that we are responsible for our actions while here on Earth whether or not you believe that there is a creator who will judge you on their validity. Marley's ghost warms Scrooge that he will be visited by three more ghosts and their visits will give Scrooge the possibility to avoid the dreadful fate that had befallen him. That couldn't be more pertinent; most climate scientists reckon we still have a window of opportunity to act, but it is closing fast.
So, what would the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future tell us should they visit us today?
The Ghost of Christmas Past might show us the great civilisation that man has built without the use of fossil fuels. The Egyptians, Greeks, Maya and Incas all built wonderful cities and empires using only human and renewable energies. The Ghost of Christmas Present might show us all of the alternative technologies; wind, solar, tidal or biogas that can be used to generate power and how Cradle to Cradle thinking could revolutionise how we make things if only we could be bothered to make the changes. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, of course, would show the same dire visions of the future and not just Scrooge's neglected and untended grave but a devastation across all humanity: massive loss of wealth and potential loss of life, sea level rises, flooding, drought, storm intensification, massive loss of bio-diversity and reductions in crop productivity. Plus, of course, the social upheaval generated as the world struggles to power itself from the declining oil resource.
For Scrooge, the visitations worked. He wakes on Christmas morning with joy and love in his heart, then spends the day with his nephew's family after anonymously sending a prize turkey to the home of his clerk for Christmas dinner. Scrooge has become a different man overnight, and now treats his fellow men with kindness, generosity, and compassion, gaining a reputation as a man who embodies the spirit of Christmas. The story closes not only with the narrator confirming the validity, completeness, and permanence of Scrooge's transformation but recognising that the world may find it hard to accept his transformation. But, he notes, "he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset"
Will we, like Scrooge, aver to change our ways in hope of changing these "shadows of what may be."? Or will climate change continue to elicit "Bah, humbug" until it is too late?
You are part of the solution when you choose to act. There is a video on my website that explains how we found ourselves in the situation. Please watch it and pass it along to your friends. With joy and love in our hearts and a spirit of generosity and compassion for our fellow man, both born and yet to be so, we can make a difference.
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