The state of the world: who’s to blame?
January 31st, 2008Day after day, I am more deeply disturbed by the contradictions between our speech and our actions on the environment front. Every time I hear or see someone complaining about the state of the environment, it seems there is always a third-party that can conveniently be blamed for the situation. Let us pick a few examples:
- the price of gasoline: Chinese growth.
- deforestation: Brazilian peasants.
- water pollution: farmers and agribusiness.
- nuclear plants: the nuclear lobby.
- overfishing: those stupid fishermen.
- biodiversity: sprawling third-world mega-cities
- lack of investment in renewables: the government
- financial insanity: those greedy stock-exchange traders
- ad lib.
No need to use a microscope to see that in each instance, we are a link in the chain that leads to the disorder decried. We drive cars, we eat beef or fish, we prefer to buy the cheaper good, we use electricity and we would not want its price doubled overnight, we want our savings to generate an income, etc.
Just like a throng pushing towards the exit can trample or suffocate dozens of people without anyone actually pushing that hard, each time we are a part of one of these chains, our weight adds up to the weight of all the other actors, putting an enormous stress on the end-links until the Earth gives in. The Brazilian lumberjack felling a 200-ft tall tree is no more guilty than his boss, his boss’s stakeholder, or me.
This is not about buying hybrid cars or compact fluorescent light bulbs. It is not about buying organic or fair trade once in a while. ‘Buying’ is the problem; not the solution.
Climatologists, energy experts, agronomists, social workers: they are not talking about a 20% change in fifty years, but about an 80% change in five years. It is about stopping before doing anything and ask myself: if seven billion people behaved like I am about to do, how would the world end up?
Somehow, it is a moral obligation to change radically right now, so that whatever catastrophes happen, I will have tried my best. And if catastrophes don’t happen, then I will jokingly congratulate myself on saving the world. But there is no carrying on pretending. Fortunately, there are tons of things I can do.
Ooh, I like that line: “If seven billion people behaved like I am about do do, how would the world end up?” You can use it both negatively and positively: (”…all bought this useless plastic item that I seem to think I want so badly standing here in the checkout line?” or “…all gave up drinking water from plastic bottles?”).
I had not thought about reversing the sentence. It is true that such a phrase can carry both despair and hope at the same time. Thank you. I might turn it into some kind of motto.
You are right. You are very right.
That question can be turned another way too: ‘Do I want to behave like those 7 billion other people I blame for screwing up the planet?’
Fortunately the planet is being screwed up by a thin minority (which I unfortunately belong to, at least via inheritance). So I do not have to blame it on seven billion people. But there is still the thorny question of how much I should do to not blame it on me, especially if I have to pay back for what I already did. Will there be an amnesty for converts? Time will tell.