“We have overcome existential threats before. Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.” — Winston Churchill

This quote resonated deep inside me. My entire body seemed to be vibrating; it felt as though my heart was emitting intense low frequency pulses.

Have you ever been invaded by intense low frequency noise?  I’ve had this unpleasant experience before. It happened when someone who installed the largest bass speakers they could fit in their car, pulled along side me at a stoplight with the volume cranked up. The sound went through the metal, plastic and glass of my car and penetrated my body.  Relief only came when the light turned green and I could create distance between my invader and me.

This time the vibrations were different. I was the source of the noise, which made it even more discomforting. I couldn’t turn it off or get away, and then I realized why my volume dial was stuck on maximum. It was the word existential.

I’m developing a program on resiliency, which incorporates a definition of resiliency by Salvatore Maddi: Resiliency is the operationalization of existential courage that facilitates the ongoing search for meaning in life. It was in that moment of reflection that I was able to locate the source of the vibrations. It was the confluence of my head and heart energies confronting the reality that climate change is an existential threat that requires the operationalization of our individual and collective existential courage to reverse its degradation of our planet.

“Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.” Churchill clearly saw and felt an existential threat. His perseverance, commitment, courage and resiliency were fueled not by a desire for personal power, but rather for the people of Great Britain and for the world to have the freedom to pursue their purpose in life. His courage was not going to be thwarted or broken by brutal dictators or totalitarian regimes with a goal to deny people the freedom to find and experience meaning in life. He knew in his head and deep in his heart that at this moment in time his purpose was to awaken and mobilize the human spirit to confront the eminent threat to its existence.

Are we courageous enough to do what is required to preserve and sustain our planet? There is no doubt – the science is irrefutable. Our planet is warming at an alarming rate. Miscalculations, spats between scientists, and record snowfalls in the Middle Atlantic States this pass winter do not alter the evidence that our planet’s temperature is rising. The threat is real and its’ consequences are creating destruction and death.  We are rapidly and radically compromising the health of our planet.

We don’t have the luxury to placate deniers or deny reality any longer as many world leaders did in the face of the existential threat of Nazism. No one will escape the consequences of global climate change; the level of connectedness and interdependence in the world prevents the consequences of climate change from being contained.

The existential threat of climate change is our challenge and it will be our children’s, grandchildren’s and their children’s destiny.  On Father’s Day weekend a 16 year-old boy in an op-ed article in the New York Times said to his father “We have no choice but to care enough.” He like Churchill clearly sees and feels the existential threat of climate change and in his own words paraphrases Churchill, “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.” Do we care enough to do what is required?

I get frustrated and sometimes angry when I hear comments from climate change deniers who obstruct meaningful discourse and trivialize the preponderance of scientific data. But I haven’t channeled this emotional energy to do anything except to rant and rave to my wife and friends.   I stay current on the science and political machinations of climate change. I’m turning off more of my electric sucking appliances, I’m recycling and we bought a green car. But am I doing what is required of me? Do I care enough?

Am I being courageous in the face of an approaching calamity? I don’t feel as though I am.  I’ve allowed petty excuses to give me cover from facing the level of caring and courageous action needed to confront this threat. It’s not about getting it right or being right or liked; it’s about doing the caring and courageous thing.

I must transform my anger and my pettiness into caring and courageous action. My children, grandchildren and their children will either see me as man who saw adversity and looked away, or a man who listened to his heart and head and mobilized his courage to give them the opportunity to pursue their unique purpose and meaning in life.

I hope that you will join with me in doing whatever you can to fight this existential threat to our planet. You can make a difference.  Please consider joining, head and heart, with other caring, courageous and resilient individuals on the Mall in Washington, DC on 10-10-10 for the Power of One’s Global Consciousness Experience.