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Global Warning - Dec 30, 2005 - Printable Version
- The Seven Deadly Sins
by Robin Buckallew
When the holiday is over, and the tree is stowed back in the garage for another year, when the turkey leftovers have ceased to appeal to you anymore, and when the football season is winding up, we now enter the time for reflection. It is time to think back on the year that has just passed, and forward to the new one that we are facing. It is time to look back on our triumphs and tragedies, our grand successes and glorious failures, as we decide whether to remember 2005 with pride of accomplishment, or file it away in a dusty back drawer of our memory and pretend it never happened. Many of us, throughout the past year, have committed one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins, and perhaps have felt some small twinge of guilt. One thing many of us have never considered is how much impact these sins have had on the environment. Every time we commit one of the Seven Deadly Sins, we leave yet a bigger dent in the world, yet a bigger hole in the fabric of the universe. Without a doubt, whatever your decision about your year, you can rest assured that, good or bad, your actions had an impact on the environment. So, as the old year draws to a close and the new year approaches, I would like you to reflect on the Seven Deadly Sins. I am not asking you for a confession. You will not have to pay penance. All I am asking is that you ask yourself, how many of these sins did you commit over the course of the last year, and what were the consequences? If you should feel a slight twinge of guilt, don't be alarmed. That is perfectly natural. It is not fatal, and will not leave you permanently disfigured. Rest assured, all the rest of us are sharing with you in the guilt and the shame. We are all reflecting back on our sinful year, and we are all sorry. Now, in case you have forgotten the Seven Deadly Sins, or are unsure why I feel they have such an environmental impact, we will have a quick review. Once we have finished this review of the Seven Deadly Sins, all I ask is that you head forward into the future with a new resolve (not a resolution - those are all too frequently broken) to take on a new role as a leader of your community and a bright example for your friends and family, an example of the difference that self-examination and critical honesty can make in our lives.
Envy. At some time in our life, we have all felt envy. Envy, in and of itself, causes little to no environmental damage. It can cause a toxic reaction in our hearts and our minds, leading us to take actions that are harmful to ourselves, to others, or to the world around us. In fact, envy is a primary driving force behind the consumptive commercialism that has put so much of the natural world at risk from overexploitation. Envy should never be confused with desire. Desire is a perfectly healthy, natural emotion that is neither destructive nor toxic. It might manifest as passion, or it might simply lead us to meet our everyday needs in a pleasurable fashion. Envy, on the other hand, is a bilious, acidic jealousy that generates dissatisfaction and disharmony, and often will lead us to self-destructive or other-destructive behavior. The ultimate outcome of envy has become the ever-increasing crescendo of the status-driven "arms race" of keeping up with the Joneses. Envy of what our neighbor possesses drives us straight to the mall, determined that our neighbor shall not outdo us. All the advertisers understand envy. They spend fortunes on commercials aimed straight at your envy. They seek to make you sin. Your sin of envy, they hope, will translate into greater wealth in their pockets.
Sloth. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines sloth as a disinclination to action or labor, or as a spiritual apathy and inactivity. Many of us think we don't exhibit sloth, because we are very "busy" all the time. We work hard at our jobs, we take care of our families, we do the tasks we are assigned. But there are many forms of sloth. Many of us exhibit a form of political sloth. We might exhibit intellectual sloth. Most of us, unfortunately, are all too frequently committing environmental sloth. For the most part, this is not an active attempt to sin. It is more frequently sins of omission rather than commission. We simply don't take the time to think about the consequences of our actions. We don't stop to research the source of the products we purchase, and we don't waste a lot of time worrying about the fate of what we throw away. We might donate some money here and there to environmental organizations we agree with, or put the recycling bin out by the curb, but we don't get out in the world and actively campaign for environmental protection. We don't go out and volunteer on the myriad of restoration and preservation projects that are always crying out for assistants. We don't make the effort to "go the extra mile". We think there will always be time for that later. What if there is no later? Perhaps, over time, our environmental sloth could indeed lead to an extinction of sloth - the three-toed kind that inhabits the trees in the tropics.
Gluttony. This one is extremely easy. We all know what gluttony is. We understand the concept of excess. Too much food, too much drink, too much of anything can be viewed as gluttonous excess. I won't dwell here on the environmental costs of gluttony - I think you probably understand them all too well. If you have been guilty of gluttony this past year, you have probably suffered some immediate consequences. Heartburn. Indigestion. Nightmares. Weight gain. You have been punished already. Or you will be soon enough, when you attempt to put on that favorite pair of tight jeans.
Wrath. Once again consulting Merriam Webster, we find that wrath is defined as a strong vengeful anger or indignation. Of course, anger is a normal emotion, and serves a valuable social function. It helps us identify situations that are disturbing or wrong. It helps inspire us to make needed changes. But when that anger reaches irrational proportions, and becomes wrath, it becomes a force for powerful destruction indeed. At the simplest level, wrath may only lead to minor impact, such as the wanton, reckless breaking of some small item in anger, an item which will then need to be landfilled, and replaced with another like it. Although this is undesirable environmentally, the true cost of wrath is much deeper than that (Read "All Those Other Living Things"). Throughout the ages, wrath has led humans to commit wanton acts of destruction with reckless disregard for other living organisms, human and non-human alike. Wars have been waged nearly non-stop, always smoldering in some corner of the world or another. Very little else that mankind has done or thought of doing can match war for the level of destruction. Just in the past 50 years, the costs of war have been immense, from the fire-bombing of Japan and the blitz in England in World War II to the defoliation of Vietnam to the oil well fires set by Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War to the utter devastation currently suffered in Afghanistan and Iraq. And all of this destruction in the cause of wrath. Strong vengeful anger.
Pride. Sometimes pride can be justified. Genuine pride in one's accomplishments is not to be scorned. There is nothing sinful in recognizing our work as good, and feeling a sense of accomplishment and a glow of success. The sinful pride is that which is arrogant, disdainful, or misplaced. The pride that tells us we are "superior" to others, our place in society guaranteed by a mere accident of birth. But the most destructive pride of all is that pride which tells us we are above it all. We don't have to set limits on ourselves, because we are man. We are chosen. We are special, and all other organisms, all other beings must give way to us. The pride which tells us we are born to dominate. The pride which drives us to get that trophy rack to hang above our fireplace to show all others that we have plenty to be proud of - we are strong (and we have big guns, so our prey doesn't stand a chance against our superior selves). There is also pride in our possessions - Hummers and huge houses and ever larger piles of "stuff" that we can point to in pride and say, "See what I have? I'm obviously someone". The simple pride of a child who has just successfully learned his ABCs is a fine and pretty sight; the pride of a puffed up glutton is not.
Lust. What is lust, really? Is it just passion, just desire? Or is it something more? We all feel passion, and we sense intuitively that it is good. Passion is healthy, it is emotionally fulfilling, and it can be very satisfying. Passion and desire can often be maintained throughout a lifetime, though it might take a little work, and might not burn as hot at the end of a life as it did at the beginning. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is my belief that lust is an intensely powerful level of passion that blinds us to rationality, leading us to impulsive, often dangerous behavior while it has hold of us. It is not typically long-lasting. Lust cannot be sustained once we achieve the object of our lust. But until we achieve that object, we are often willing to do nearly anything to get it. In our modern life, we are bombarded daily with hundreds of ads for objects, products that we are supposed to desire. These ads are often designed in such a way that they will lead us to a form of lust. The admen are perfectly aware of the strength of lust. They aren't interested in mere interest, mere longing. They seek the ultimate emotional connection with whatever the product they are trying to sell. Our lust has led us to an objectification of many of the things around us, including nature, including other humans, including the earth itself. We are told to desire the universe, and nothing less - no, not to desire it, to LUST after it. To seek to possess it to the fullest, without any restraints or any limits. Lust knows no limits. Unfortunately, our natural resources have limits. Will our lust keep driving us to acquisition until we exceed those limits? Only time will tell.
Greed. In the decade of the 1980s, we were all treated to the slogan "Greed is good". This was counter to everything we had ever been taught, since greed is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. If it is indeed a deadly sin, how then can it be good? We were told that greed would lead us to achieve, to acquire, to grow, and to progress. We believed it. We were wrong. Greed leads us to level rainforests, pollute the waters and the skies with toxic chemicals, rip the tops off mountains and dump them into streams, regard life as a commodity, and in general act with a level of environmental irresponsibility that should be criminalized. We ignore the consequences, sloughing off the environmental costs to future generations, leaving behind a toxic mess that our descendants will have to clean up at their expense sometime after we're long gone. We make the money, we have the party, and they pick up the tab. For the greedy, that seems like an ideal situation. As for those of us who aren't part of the corporate culture, we are not immune to greed, either. Because of greed, we are on the lookout for the bigger, ever bigger, still bigger item. We went from the SUV to the really big SUV to the Hummer. Suddenly, a '57 Chevy looks positively petite! Bigger houses, bigger TVs, bigger appetites - it's like the whole country suddenly turned into Texas. In our greed-driven economy, we worship at the throne of the very wealthy, even while paying lip service to our desire to help the poor. We buy books by and about them, first Lee Iaccoca, then Sam Walton, then Bill Gates. The richer they are, the better they are. Greed. Greed is good. You want my two cents worth? I'll give it to you for free. I believe that greed is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. If you don't believe me, just check out the crowds at Christmas, trampling other shoppers to get the best bargains first. Watch the TV news, with the shopping carts jammed into a bumper-to-bumper orgy of spending that begins at 5:00 in the morning, which is the time the stores now open at the Christmas season. How many times do we have to hear on the news about a woman in the hospital because the Christmas shoppers trampled her underfoot to get to the cheap DVD players first? Repeat after me: Greed is not good.Greed is not good.Greed is not good. The deadliest of the deadly sins.
So, there we have it. Envy. Sloth. Gluttony. Wrath. Pride. Lust. Greed. The Seven Deadly Sins. How many are you guilty of? How do they increase your environmental impact? Mull it over. It just might save your life.
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