Climate binds us. Our macroenvironment is now a legal and social contract in the form of the Paris Agreement, also known as the Paris Accords.1 The international treaty on climate change is one of the first to unite 196 nations in a common goal to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2° C above pre-industrial levels” and “limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels.”2 Signed on December 12, 2015, it marks the first time a unilateral global goal is not focused on war or trade, which underpins the defense of national boundaries. Instead, it underscores something more significant than these transitory identities, something apparent when you watch the clouds or a sunset: boundless nature, a continuum of sea, land, and air as a constant exchange of energy and sustenance that is Earth, and now our shared responsibility.
