To take on climate change, we need to change our vocabulary

When we talk about saving the planet, we employ the narrative of war. Does it only deepen our divisions?

Each dead house fly was worth a quarter, my mom told us kids, but I never earned any money. Every time I cornered a fly, I pictured goo marks left on the wall - spots splayed with tiny black guts and twisted legs. My halfhearted swats gave even the most sluggish fly time to escape.

That I genuinely couldn't hurt a fly might have been something I picked up in church. I grew up attending a Mennonite congregation in Indiana. We weren't the bonnet-wearing, buggy-riding sort, but we embraced some traditions, like the Anabaptist teaching of nonviolence. This sometimes expressed itself in an instinct for conflict avoidance.