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Global Warning - Jan 28, 2009 - Printable Version
- Fatal Distraction
by Robin Buckallew
I’ve been noticing something lately about my environmental news: there isn’t any. For a very short while, I was receiving regular updates in my inbox, to the tune of as many as a dozen a day. I am currently receiving fewer than a dozen a month, at least from the mainstream sources that I follow. From the actual environmental sources, there are still updates, though they too are few and far between, and inexplicably rosy about how much everybody is talking about the environment. I say inexplicably because this is coming from groups who themselves aren’t talking much about the topic that is the reason for their very existence. On those rare occasions when I dare to mention this to any of my friends or acquaintances, I find I am liable to get my head nearly decapitated in the sputtering outraged tirade that typically follows. "HOW CAN YOU BE THINKING ABOUT SUCH AN ELITIST, IRRELEVANT TOPIC AT THIS TIME WHEN OUR ECONOMY IS IN MELTDOWN? DON’T YOU KNOW PEOPLE ARE LOSING EVERYTHING? DON’T YOU KNOW THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAN SAVING A FEW WHALES OR POLAR BEARS? WE CAN TALK ABOUT THAT LATER, WHEN WE GET EVERY OTHER PRESSING PROBLEM SOLVED. COME BACK NEXT DECADE, YOU INCOMPASSIONATE, ELITIST, ARROGANT SOB!!!!!!"
I would like to say this right now, before I even begin. I know the economy is in meltdown. I know people are losing jobs. I know we need to do something to “fix” what’s “broken” (perhaps what never really worked in the first place, but merely gave us an illusion of working?). In spite of all that, I think that the environmental issues need to be in a position of primacy in our national conversation. The issues of protecting the resources that our economy has been depending on since the beginning of time, since before any individual anywhere ever heard the terms “capitalism” or “communism”, since the first humans stepped out of the trees and stood upright in the blazing sun of the African savannah, this issue is the single most important thing facing humanity, and indeed every other species that shares the Earth with us, at this and every other time. It is simply unrealistic and even delusional to believe that we can somehow “fix” the economy without addressing the immense problems facing that on which the very economy is built – the Earth itself.
Ever since the modern environmental movement began, there have been people pushing aside the increasingly urgent information that the very Earth itself is changing. At the beginning of the 1970s, when the first Earth Day occurred, and Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and created the EPA, the overall importance of it was constantly diminished by people who were focused on ending the Vietnam War. This was, of course, an important issue, but it was allowed to overshadow the issue of protecting the resources of the Earth, and this was wrong. In the 1980s, the environment was still on the back burner, still simmering away, scores of frustrated folks still trying to get a critical mass to listen to them, but it was overshadowed by the Reagan Revolution, the onrush of deregulation and “small government”, the Greed is Good decade, and the rising tide that was eventually going to lift all boats. In the 1990s, it was overshadowed by Monica Lewinsky and neo-liberal free trade agreements, not to mention just plain ennui. The public was quite frankly bored with anything that appeared to be important, and was relentlessly focused on the trivial. Besides, Al Gore was VEEP, so he could fix it all without us having to lift a finger.
Then, came the Bush years. Dubya moved into the White House, and began repainting it coal and petroleum gray. The public awakened from their deep slumber and heard the alarm. Melting ice caps, rising CO2, drowning polar bears, and Hurricane Katrina. For one brief, shining moment, everybody seemed to notice that things were changing. Even Newt Gingrich, champion of small government and leader of the Contract On America, agreed that something had to be done, though he and Gore were light years apart on just what had to be done. Hopes were high, and everyone was sure we had now reached critical mass. Then, just as has happened with so many other issues, the public attention shifted to something else. Gas prices. The economic crisis. The foreclosures, the layoffs….all important, yes. More important than the Earth itself? From the answers I get to that question, I would have to conclude that, for most people, the answer to that is a resounding YES. We’ve grown so used to taking the Earth for granted, we continue to assume that it will patiently wait in the wings for solutions until we get all these other things sorted out. In this, we are wrong. The environment, tired of being shunted aside like an unwelcome extramarital lover, is acting not unlike Glenn Close when asked to occupy that famous role….nature is slowly but surely boiling all our pet bunnies. The main difference in this case from the case of Ms. Close? The environment is not the extramarital lover. The environment is the wronged wife.
We cannot focus on the economy without focusing on the environment, not anymore. We know too much now, we have no excuses. For most of human history, we assumed we were too small, and the Earth too big, for our economic endeavors to make any real changes. Not only that, we assumed that any changes we made were positive. We referred to land in its natural state as “unimproved” or “wasted”. We believed we could make things better than they already were. Whether we believed nature was created by God or just developed through natural processes, we believed we were smarter. Smarter than God, smarter than Nature, we could improve on what was already there. Suddenly, we find that isn’t the case. Sometimes those little things we didn’t value, like the Everglades, turn out to be vitally important to the proper functioning of the Earth. We understand little about how many of these things work, but we do understand that somehow, without us altering them, they manage to perform countless important tasks daily that make the Earth livable for the countless (or at least uncounted) species that call it home. In spite of that, we still proceed apace, leveling mountains, leveling forests, filling in wetlands, plowing prairies, and paving over deserts. Even the most committed conservationist will sooner or later shrug their shoulders, look mournfully at the mess, and say, “Well, humans need jobs. Humans need food. Humans need gas oil coal diamonds mercury titanium chromium……..” We operate in the short term, spending most of our time fixing those crises that are coming up because of the short term thinking we did in the last week, the last month, the last decade, and never stopping to ask ourselves “When is too much enough?” We have blinders on, and we are ignoring the numerous phone calls that the Earth has been making (perhaps she should try our cell phones, or maybe send a text message? Mother Earth needs to keep up with today’s technology if she expects us to listen, I suppose). Welcome home…enjoy your boiled bunny. Next week, it might be something you actually care about.
The economic crisis, contrary to being more important than the environmental crisis, is inextricably linked with the environmental crisis. The solutions to the latter are bound to be important in solving the former. We have built an economic system built on infinite growth in a finite world; it cannot be sustained. The resources available are inadequate to keep the current population living a decent life; what will it be when the population grows to the predicted 9 billion by 2050? The Earth isn’t getting any bigger, but we expect the economy to continue doing just that. Most of the solutions to the economic crisis are bound up in the same short term, immediate fix thinking that got us into this crisis in the first place. The answers are being provided by the same minds that created the problems, and that should have us scared shitless. Instead, we seem to be hanging on their every word, debating whether the bailouts go far enough, or are going to the right people. The one place we aren’t bailing is the place where the waters are rising fastest….the environment. These waters are real, they are lapping at our shores, and we are oblivious. We worry about saving the economy, and we never notice that our solutions continue to destroy the Earth…in fact, destroy it faster than ever.
In 2007, CO2 levels rose higher than in the preceding years (and this was the year we were actually aware of the environment!)…we have now passed the worst case scenario of the global warming models, and are wandering around in over-the-top territory. Meanwhile, few people seem to be adequately concerned, assuming that will take care of itself if we get the economy working right. Like the coyote, we are dangling in mid-air. Soon, we’ll be forced to look down. We’ll stick up that ubiquitous “HELP” sign the coyote always carried around mysteriously secreted on his person. It never helped him. It won’t help us. It’s time to stop chasing this particular roadrunner, and look somewhere else for our sustenance. The economy has given us one more distraction, leaving us hovering obliviously for a few more moments in time, but the distraction won’t last forever. The economic crisis cannot be solved by a handful of economic stimulus packages designed to make people consume ever more of the resources we depend on to survive. Solving the economic crisis in this way will only set the stage for more far-reaching crises in the near future. Listen to the Earth. “Eat your boiled bunny…there’s lots more where that came from. I will not be ignored.”
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