This is one of many articles in the Mercury’s 2026 Climate Issue. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous and want to keep these types of articles coming, support us here.—eds.
The climate crisis is here, and it sucks. It’s probably the biggest disaster humanity has ever faced, and despite decades of increasingly dire warnings, those in power have largely declined to address the problem in a meaningful way. Extreme heat, floods, and wildfires are worse and deadlier than ever. Animal species are constantly disappearing. Old growth forests are up in flames.
It’s very difficult to know how to live in this reality. As someone inclined toward pessimism and general existential dread, I have often reacted to the climate crisis—and my inability to do much about it—with despair. Knowing my individual actions were inconsequential drops in the bucket compared to the scale of the problem, I have tended toward the status quo. In the past, that meant driving my gas-powered car short distances without giving much thought to the alternative ways I could get around.
Transportation is one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis, at least in the United States. Some of those transportation emissions come from billionaires flying around in their private planes, burning jet fuel like it’s a renewable resource. (Ban private jets, BTW.) But a much larger chunk of greenhouse gas emissions come from normal Americans driving normal, gas-powered cars.
Still, I found it hard to see myself as part of the problem, considering the larger systemic factors at play. I mean, why should I bother doing anything differently? I thought of individual climate action mostly as a way to alleviate one’s guilt for existing on a warming planet. That’s how BP sold the idea of a “carbon footprint” to the public in the early aughts, hoping to shift blame for the crisis away from fossil fuel companies and onto regular people. But it did not bring me peace to accept the notion that there was nothing I could do.
During the Pacific Northwest’s record-smashing 2021 heat dome, my hopelessness peaked. A 116 degree day in Portland seemed like the end of the world, or at least the start of it. There was nothing I could do that would mean anything. What was there to do but wait?
My despondent reaction was not the most helpful response to a crisis that killed more than 100 Oregonians. As the extreme heat subsided, and the world kept turning, I realized I needed to pull myself together.
I decided to ride my bike, and I haven’t really stopped since.
Conversations about climate change, even when led by well-informed and thoughtful people, often end up presenting a more climate-conscious future as one that also kind of sucks. People are always talking about “giving stuff up” and “making sacrifices.” But as I began traveling around town by bike more often, I didn’t feel like I was sacrificing anything. The more I pedaled, the more powerful (and less helpless) I felt.
On my bike, I quickly developed a stronger connection to the world around me, and started to identify as part of a larger ecosystem. I also started to understand that for all my anxiety and despair about the issue, I had actually been avoiding dealing with the climate crisis and its real-world impacts on my life. I literally sat inside on days when the forecast looked depressingly hot—not because I didn’t want to overheat, but because I didn’t want to confront the world I was living in.
That was easy enough to do when I could limit my time outside to walking to and from my air-conditioned car, but on a bike, you have to contend with the elements. I thought grappling with the weather head-on (or helmet-on) would make me more depressed, but it did the opposite, helping me realize my own capacity for resilience on a warming planet. I saw resiliency in others, too. I listened to birds chirping while riding down quiet side streets and spotted beautiful flowers, still blooming despite everything.
My avoidance made me think of the world as a scarier and more hostile place than it really is. Once I started riding my bike more, I didn’t necessarily become an optimist, but my thoughts became a little calmer.
Now, five years after I dedicated myself to getting around by bike, it feels funny to make a big deal out of my initial foray into car skepticism. I don’t have a car anymore—riding my bike everywhere is just a mundane part of my life. But at the time, choosing a different way to get around felt exciting, even transgressive. It made me realize I was capable of change, and maybe others were, too.
To be clear, I’ve never believed my personal actions make a big impact on global carbon emissions. Still, my decisions matter. Looking back, I realize my mentality—which allowed me to hide behind my supposed powerlessness—effectively put me in agreement with the fossil fuel companies and climate change denialists, who said change was too hard and a better world wasn’t possible.
I yielded to their depressing worldview, even though I deeply desired a new reality where people were taking real action to stop the climate crisis. I knew in my ideal world, people would be doing things differently, including driving less. But I wasn’t doing much to show I wanted this, even—or especially—to myself. The cognitive dissonance weighed me down.
The gap between my beliefs and actions subconsciously led me to two conflicting thought patterns. My lack of urgent action had to mean either the climate crisis wasn’t actually that big of a deal, or else it was so bad I should just give up. If I was dealing with an immediate emergency, like a house fire, I’d probably try to do something about it—unless I was rendered incapacitated by the flames, in which case why bother? It’s no wonder I was constantly spiraling.
I still struggle with climate despair and anxiety, especially during the summer. I know there’s more I could be doing to help, and I occasionally grapple with intense guilt over everything I’m doing wrong. But given how much time we spend getting from one place to another, our transportation choices are a big part of our lives. It helped my sense of cognitive dissonance to make a significant tweak like that, allowing me to more genuinely accept the climate crisis as the emergency it is, and feel slightly more empowered about my role in addressing it.
And, of course, it’s also brought me joy—riding a bike is fun, for one thing. Even if the world is ending, it’s not a bad way to spend your time.
