The most likely scenario

Activists have to be, at least on some level, optimists. You just can’t throw yourself into something thinking, “Well, this is a waste of energy.” I believe, because I have to believe, that we are capable of doing something about this giant iceberg we’re about to hit. Even if we can’t turn this boat around, we can still wake up, governments can start reining corporations in, and we can all start making more sensible decisions that mitigate catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, fresh water shortages, and ocean acidification.

From a rational perspective, I have to admit that it’s all starting to sound a little improbable. The scientific evidence has piled up, yet governments are still taking, at best, baby steps — not all of them in the right direction. A significant minority of people is still unconvinced that climate change is anything more than a political hoax. My neighbors still don’t recycle their empty water bottles.

If I take off the rose-colored activist lens, I think we’re probably screwed to some extent. Most likely, we’ll continue to hem and haw and bury our heads in the sand for another few decades, maybe 20-50 years. Our world governments will continue to dither about environmentalism vs economy. In the meantime, we’ve seen plenty to suggest that our food supply, especially from the oceans, will destabilize, fresh water availability will decrease, and natural disasters will increase in frequency and scale. I think it’s almost inevitable that we will lose most of our endangered species, including our beloved pandas, African elephants, amur leopards, and orangutans, along with many less glamorous but equally important components of ecosystems.

There will probably be more riots and less stability. Some industries will adapt, new ones will spring up, but many will suffer.  The population will likely continue to increase until famine, disease, and other resource shortages start taking us out. The younger generation will probably be pretty pissed off with how we handled things.

At some point, the majority of us will probably realize what’s going on and go, “Oh, crap.” At this point, I think we’ll finally learn whether or not humans can, in fact, act collectively and wisely as a species to adapt to the new situation and make better decisions. Our track history is against it, but who knows?

One thing is certain: we’re heading for some interesting times. 

On that note, I’ve decided to take a blogging break. (It’s probably pretty clear why from this post.) I’ve had some other projects — a novel, my pottery — on the backburner for a while, and blogging really does take a significant chunk of time and energy away from them. I’ll be back in a few weeks. In the meantime, here’s my newest piece out of the kiln:

Until later.

What we’re up against

Whenever I feel a little too comfortable in my treehugger social bubble, I need only look as far as my condo complex to give myself a good slap in the face. There are recyclables in the trash…pretty much every time. There is trash in the recycle bin…pretty much every time. The dryers are going full blast when it’s 95 degrees outside, and my downstairs neighbors regularly take 20 minute showers as if the Californian drought were pure fantasy. But today — wow, today was a whole new level of clueless, American entitlement at work.

I’m so astounded by what I observed today that I drew you a picture.

Here’s the explanation. This family lives on a ground unit with a door that opens out on their covered parking spot, where they keep a big gray truck. To do laundry, they put it in the truck, drive it less than 50 feet down to the laundry room, double park, and leave their engine running while they go put their laundry in. Then they back up to their spot and double park it again. A little later, they drive up again to retrieve the washed and dried laundry. They are neither disabled nor old.

(Feel free to interject “WTF??!” at any point here.)

Kevin had to point out what they were doing because it would never, ever have occurred to me that even the most clueless American would do something so phenomenally…I don’ t even know how to describe it. Lazy? Thoughtless? Self-absorbed? Unsustainable? American?

Unfortunately, I strongly suspect they’re a lot closer to the standard American family than Kevin and I are. It’s not just them; it’s an attitude problem that most of America has. It’s the attitude that I’m free to do whatever is easiest, cheapest, and best for me regardless of the costs to other people, species, and ecosystems. That the long term viability of our resources doesn’t matter in the face of present abundance. That I deserve to be able to do my laundry like a bastard because I can. 

This is what the environmental movement is really up against. Be afraid.

Why We Can (But Won’t) Save the Earth

Today I find myself supremely frustrated by the following set of facts:

1. Humans are smart enough to predict, detect, and measure environmental problems caused by our actions.
2. Humans are also smart enough to produce viable solutions to circumvent or minimize many of them.
3. Humans are unlikely to act with sufficient speed, unity, and scale to succeed in doing so. (See Copenhagen.)

In other words, we’re smart enough to get ourselves out of the mess we’ve created, but not wise enough to. What’s wrong with us? To answer this question, I came up with this thoroughly unscientific and completely unsubstantiated graph based on my observations of myself and others. Ta da.

Cool colors represent information gaps: issues we’re not aware of, are incorrectly informed about, or don’t want to find out more about.

Warm colors are things that prevent us from acting even though we are aware of the issue.

Since a total of two people (Kevin & me) were directly polled, I’m only going to look at each from a personal standpoint. No accusations, no exhortations. So, ignorance: both the lack of awareness of external problems and the lack of awareness of how my everyday actions contribute to them. I’m fairly well informed, but the likelihood that there is crap happening out there that I don’t know about, and that I’m unaware of the full consequences of my actions are both 100%. Misinformation and denial are are two parts of the same coin. It’s staggeringly, gut-wrenchingly depressing to accept full responsibility for my actions and unconscious habits.  I can see how tempting it would be to turn to misinformation (thoughtfully provided by corporations, lobbyists, Fox News, and other organizations that want to maintain the status quo) for comfort. No one wants to think, “Hey, I’ve just gone and totally screwed over the Earth!”

The warm colors are issues that I struggle with every day. Knowing about and accepting responsibility for the mess we made is only the beginning. The next part is actually doing something, and even concerned global citizens are up against a strong sense of complacency. I have a comfortable life. I’m deeply attached to my car, my electricity, my central heating. Although I’m vegetarian (for mostly non-environmental reasons) and unlikely to ever have children, I have never given up anything that would have been a serious hardship.  Heck, I feel a surge of stubborn resistance at even the thought of giving up my daily shower.

Related to complacency is a deeply rooted sense of entitlement, and its uglier counterpart, greed. Any action phrased in terms of ‘giving up’ is not going to fly. Even the green movement is hitting mainstream as a consumer movement of substitutions, not real changes and reductions. As a first world citizen, I am only starting to get over my sense of entitlement to cheap clothes, cheap food, whatever kind of transportation I can afford, and the right to act without the least regard for other people, animals, and habitats. The invisibility of the costs of my lifestyle doesn’t help, either. (See ignorance, above.) 

And finally, culture is the glue that holds my unsustainable, if recovering, lifestyle and mentality together. Culture legitimizes, excuses, and even soothes with conspicuous consumption. Going green means wrenching yourself out of an entire mindset and culture and into one in which what you buy is less important than how you live. Brave new world, indeed.

Each of these problems is deeply intertwined, but they’re easy enough to diagnose. The hard part is coming up with effective, wide-ranging solutions — and finding a way to get everyone to implement them. Like, now.  Because it’s either we change now or the Earth forces us, less nicely, to change later. It’s looking increasingly that the human species is opting for the latter.