The people of Texas and Louisiana are beginning to rebuild after Harvey, and the library community has stepped up to help. As we have seen in the aftermath of all too many disasters, the library infrastructure and network is critical. Not only do libraries provide refuge and expertise to put to work on relief efforts, but librarians consistently offer compassion and are ready to serve anyone in need.

Early reports on life after Harvey show a profession poised to help again. LJ’s Lisa Peet found members of the local library community, though themselves impacted, helping in their buildings and beyond, and the field as a whole activated to assist from afar. This is no small thing. It should be recognized as the major contribution it is, to the near-term recovery and the long haul ahead, and it makes my heart swell with pride.

However, there’s an even harder haul, of which Harvey—like Katrina, Rita, and Sandy before it—is only the visible tip of the melting iceberg. And about that, I feel heartbreak and fear for the future. Those emotions are quickly followed by a growing determination to address—in whatever way I can—the global climate problem and the steep hill we face as we reckon with this unsustainable course.

In the first week of the aftermath of Harvey, Guardian columnist George Monbiot reflected on the sort of self-censorship that often manifests with regard to the climate crisis, and our collective willingness to look away, to treat Harvey as a natural happenstance instead of one exacerbated by human-made climate change.

Monbiot calls out our dismal efforts at planning to address what he calls “climate breakdown,” referring to other terminology as “curiously bland.” I couldn’t agree more. The idea that this is a passive process—that the climate is changing, as opposed to being changed—and the illusion that the change is value-neutral falsely absolve us of agency in acknowledging the problem and fixing it.

We ignore climate reality at our peril. “Our current approach is like sitting next to a sandcastle, pretending we had no idea it was going to get swept away—only the sandcastle is civilization, and we know damn well that the waves are coming in,” writes Lauren Duca in Teen Vogue.

Monbiot charges that the powers that be, including the media, are irresponsible when they deny the link or aren’t explicit about the multiplicity of factors that make a storm like Harvey as destructive as it is. “To claim there is no link between climate breakdown and the severity of Hurricane Harvey is like claiming there is no link between the warm summer we have experienced and the end of the last ice age,” he writes. “While no weather event can be blamed solely on human-driven warming, none is unaffected by it.”

Houston, unfortunately, is only one place impacted by the global catastrophe we are already grappling with—and we are all affected, even if we choose to disregard the connections. Monbiot is basically describing a failure of will, one that is enabled by an information problem. Those of us committed to facts and access to information as power have a battle ahead.

As I’ve argued before, the global library network could be transformational for our communities in moving the needle on the civic response to climate breakdown—to adopt Monbiot’s language for our dark reality. There are many in the field who are creating thought leadership and organizational avenues for libraries that want to take the lead on community sustainability. A great example is the forthcoming Sustainable Libraries Certification Program in development by the New York Library Association Sustainability Initiative, which you’ll hear more about in a future column by Rebekkah Smith Aldrich. Still, we must do more. More libraries need to take that lead and not let ourselves be held back by inertia or a fear of appearing too political. Let this moment be a spur.

As much as I’d like it to be different, I refuse to look away from the dark reality. Instead, I will help to find a way to influence a future in which my children, and theirs, and all the generations to follow live in a society that is not just eking out survival but thriving in a vibrant ecosystem.