I have a pretty good roof over my head, money in the bank, a physical body that suffers no ills. So on a basic level I have no problems. Like any human being, I have hurts and cares and scars. There’s a leak in my porch roof when we get those three-inch rainstorms—is that a problem? My sump pump stops working sometimes in those same storms—is that a problem? The latter I noodle by asking around, adjusting the float switch, crossing my fingers. The former I hope was a fluke.

As a sailor I consider issues with my house in relation to my boat. My leaking roof? Are those rain dribbles down the wall likely to sink the boat? No. They are a nuisance, not a problem. Do I need to figure them out? Yes.

The sump pump. That has potential, like just last year when the water kept rising, almost to the furnace. That was a problem. Storm after storm I kept working through the system and finally found a golf-ball sized rock blocking my pump outflow. Got rid of the rock and got rid of the problem. That is, until the float switch started acting up.

What is a problem? What’s just a situation? Perspective and meaning shade the differences. 

As I write this my belly is full. There are no assault rifles trained on me. And yet, on a daily basis each of my actions has the potential to create a problem. 

A problem isn’t usually a one-off. There are warnings—actions or behaviors that go unchecked. The salted peanuts aren’t a problem until my blood pressure maxes out and blows my aorta. The first martini isn’t an issue—it’s that last one that causes me to pass out that creates the problem. 

These days when I hop in my car to do an errand I’m no longer just running an errand. I’m burning fossil fuels, adding to the warming of our planet—that’s a problem. In my kitchen when I unspool the plastic wrap to cover a dish, I’m producing a piece of trash made of hundreds of chemicals that will exist on this planet for hundreds of years. That’s a problem.

Something has happened to me a I’ve aged. I see my complicity in the world’s problems. Several years ago, I was part of boat partnership where we willingly emptied our holding tank into the waters of Penobscot Bay. Eventually I wrote an article about my behavior and others’—admitting that I—and my boat partner—was dumping sewage with each flush. Predictably it upset many people. I had reached a breaking point, where the knowledge of the my harmful behavior was something I had to share. I was publicly shaming myself, and my boat, and other complicit sailors. Because I know I justify and rationalize my individual behavor—as do hundreds and millions of others. 

We think we each live in our own little behavior bubble—it’s just me, or it’s just one time. And soon enough we’ve living with a warming planet, levels of ecoli in our harbor, and bloodstreams ready to burst aortas thinned by years of hard, high pressure along their walls. 

What’s that point that takes my handful of peanuts from pleasure to death threat? Which errand in my internal combustion engine car moves the planet from 1.5 degrees celsius to the death zone of 2.0 celsius? 

How do we know when the planetary aorta is about to blow? What’s our planetary tipping point? Every single ounce of fossil fuel burned—when I start my car, when I set the temperature at 65 cranking on the propane boiler in my house, when I heat the glow plugs to fire up the diesel in my sailboat—is trapped in the atmosphere and heats our planet. As I go about my day and burn those fossil fuels I play this game of, “I’m only one person, it’s okay.” 

Me and the other 8 billion people on the planet. Me and the other 5,000 residents of Camden. Me and the two children I’ve brought into this world. 

What’s the problem? We don’t see, we don’t feel that we’re all together in this one planetary system we call Earth. Each of our actions has an impact.

Each cell in my body is impacted when I stuff another handful of peanuts into my mouth. The full impact won’t be felt until all the factors line up and I blow my aorta. But if my behavior doesn’t change the balance shifts from a salty snack to a death sentence.

Once I know better I’m supposed to be smart enough to choose better. My love of life, my love of my being, my world, should kick in and lead me to change my behavior.

And yet. 

We carry on. I carry on. Just me, just this handful. It’s not really a problem. 

Just this quick car trip to the store.

One planet, one atmosphere, one planetary system.

Each amount of warming matters. 

We delude ourselves. 

Behaviors don’t change.

That’s a problem. 

Molly Mulhern lives in Camden