Erik Assadourian

Ultimately, the question is two-fold: 1) What are we trying to make more resilient? Luxury shopping malls or local hospitals? And 2) How we go about it? Building networks of neighborhood parks that serve a dual role as flood control or giant underground concrete storage tanks that offer no benefits except every 5-50 years when there’s a flood?

Does this plastic orgy simply continue until we’re all reproductively compromised and the problem solves itself? Or is there a solution to the plastic world we’re entombing ourselves in?

But the question remains, will New Yorkers invest that activist energy into cultivating sustainable ways to do more with less, while more equitably redistributing the shrinking pie, or simply force the redirection of goods from other parts of the world that have less power or force of will?

While the polycrisis will emerge differently and at different times in different parts of the world, we will all experience it, so it’s worth reminding ourselves of this and mentally, personally, and communally preparing for it. As well as fighting to help navigate through it with our humanity intact, and our understanding of our dependence on Gaia heightened.

Once we break out of the myth that our minds are separate from our bodies, it becomes apparent that we are the same as all other living beings. We are not special, and therefore do not warrant having mastery over other species or over ‘creation.’

There’s a game you might remember from childhood called Four Square. Four kids stand in a 2×2 grid with one kid yelling out rules on how they can hit the ball—with their hands, feet, only while grunting, etc. If you fail to pass on the ball, you’re out and some other kid takes your spot.