I’m a Pessimist (PS)

I was the first place winner in the 2015 Malibu Optimist Club Oratorical Competition. My speech discussed how I would harness optimism to change the world with my future achievements. But it was all a lie, because I’m no optimist…

I’m a pessimist.

I didn’t choose the pessimist life, the pessimist life chose me. Honestly, I would love to believe in a higher power and an afterlife, but I haven’t seen any substantial scientific evidence. I would also love to believe that the U.S. could overcome its partisan difficulties and make progress on issues like gun control and health care. Another civil war seems more likely. Most of all, I would love to see global leaders prioritize climate change legislation. However, I happen to know a few humans, and we’ll probably let the sixth mass extinction occur from the comfort of our couches while watching Netflix.

I’ve accepted the fact that my world is probably doomed, but I also love my world. I would do anything to keep it from utter destruction, even if only for a few minutes more. In an attempt to make those minutes a reality, I looked in my community for ways to get involved in the fight.

I joined Heal the Bay’s Aquarium volunteer staff at the Santa Monica Pier to teach visitors about the beauty of the ocean and its creatures. The volunteers demonstrate the ocean’s wonders by offering visitors experiences with leopard sharks, sunflower sea stars, and moray eels, hoping that those visitors will develop a greater respect for the environment and become less likely to abuse it. And while many of the same guests we educated continued to throw their garbage on the beach, I was inspired by the dedication of my fellow volunteers, who believed they could clean up the world.

I began working with the Marine Protected Area Watch, joining other volunteers who care about the ocean’s protection. My fellow Citizen Scientists and I monitor local beaches in an attempt to deter illegal activity such as biota collection by calling in park rangers for backup (or aggressively marking ticks on our surveys). The data we collect contributes to academic studies about activity in the protected area; over 20 of my surveys have been published. I know our work can’t reverse climate change or un-extinct the dodo, but that won’t stop us from marking tallys and taking names.

In addition to working with Heal the Bay on community issues, I wanted to pursue global solutions, so I joined the Laboratory for the Chemistry of Construction Materials, a Civil and Environmental Engineering Lab at UCLA. The lab focuses on designing sustainable building materials, specifically concrete. My project focused on the dissolution kinetics of calcite in the presence of organic ligands at high pH to simulate a cementitious environment, and my results have applications for sequestering carbon dioxide. I finally felt like I was making a real difference.

I was raised on science, not faith, and pessimism happens to be a possible side effect.

I brush my teeth, wash my face, climb into bed, and think about our future of rising sea levels and supervolcano eruptions. I’m a pessimist because I never saw a reason not to be.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on my planet. I’ve had the opportunity to work beside people who want to make our world better. As long as there is a shred of hope among people, even if it is not my own hope, then there is a chance that we can stop some of the damage being done (before the sun eventually explodes). Unlike my optimistic counterparts, I know and have accepted what’s coming, so I’ll be ready, at least more ready than anyone else, to stop the unstoppable.

And if I fail, what does it matter? That asteroid was totally coming anyway!