I live in a bubble. If you're reading this right now, you also live in a bubble - inside the contained habitat of our technocratic anthropocene. In March of 2011 Elizabeth Kolbert wrote an article for the National Geographic entitled Enter the Anthropocene - Age of Man in which she discusses the possible ways in which humanity may leave an indelible mark on the earth itself so that "to future geologists...our impact may look as sudden and profound as that of an asteroid" (Kolbert). I mention all of this because in the context of Michael Maniates's Going Green? I believe it is relevant.
Humans are changing the earth. That is the bottom line. And inside the safe spaces of our highly connected, technologically inundated societies, we don't notice. I grew up in an affluent Maryland suburb. In my neighborhood, almost everyone recycled. In my house, we always made sure the lights were turned off before we left the house. I was encouraged to take shorter showers, (to admittedly varying success) and we often bought (and still buy) produce from a local stand a short drive from our house. As citizen of the United States who was relatively uninformed about the environmental situation beyond Nightly News specials on the destruction of the rainforest, I felt good about our lifestyle. I mean, we recycled! My family was helping the environment. We were friendly to it.
This mindset - my own mindset, at times - is exactly the problem Maniates points out in his Washington Post article from 2007. The contained habitat I mentioned earlier - the places where electricity, running water and connection to the outside world via technologies is largely taken for granted - looks pretty nice to those living inside of it. There are still green things; trees and gardens inside cities, bits of Nationally preserved parks, patches of wilderness between suburban neighborhood, where even the occasional wild animal may appear, the sky is blue, the air seems clear, and you can see the starts in the night sky. Never mind the exhaust from the UPS truck filling the air with black smog, never mind the coal and fossil fuels polluting the earth to keep us warm at night. The lights turn on when we flick the switch, we can connect our 3 and 4G phones to the internet when we go on a weekend camping trip. But we recycle papers and plastics; so the environment is going to be OK. In this contained habitat of the technocratic anthropocene, we have been content with our "simple steps" and the "glorification of easy" as Maniates puts it.
Humans are changing the earth. That is the bottom line. And inside the safe spaces of our highly connected, technologically inundated societies, we don't notice. I grew up in an affluent Maryland suburb. In my neighborhood, almost everyone recycled. In my house, we always made sure the lights were turned off before we left the house. I was encouraged to take shorter showers, (to admittedly varying success) and we often bought (and still buy) produce from a local stand a short drive from our house. As citizen of the United States who was relatively uninformed about the environmental situation beyond Nightly News specials on the destruction of the rainforest, I felt good about our lifestyle. I mean, we recycled! My family was helping the environment. We were friendly to it.
This mindset - my own mindset, at times - is exactly the problem Maniates points out in his Washington Post article from 2007. The contained habitat I mentioned earlier - the places where electricity, running water and connection to the outside world via technologies is largely taken for granted - looks pretty nice to those living inside of it. There are still green things; trees and gardens inside cities, bits of Nationally preserved parks, patches of wilderness between suburban neighborhood, where even the occasional wild animal may appear, the sky is blue, the air seems clear, and you can see the starts in the night sky. Never mind the exhaust from the UPS truck filling the air with black smog, never mind the coal and fossil fuels polluting the earth to keep us warm at night. The lights turn on when we flick the switch, we can connect our 3 and 4G phones to the internet when we go on a weekend camping trip. But we recycle papers and plastics; so the environment is going to be OK. In this contained habitat of the technocratic anthropocene, we have been content with our "simple steps" and the "glorification of easy" as Maniates puts it.
We shouldn't be. The simple, easy steps blind us to the truth of the hard facts: that humans are changing the planet, and those changes are mostly likely accelerating, and most likely will not benefit future generations of humanity as we know them. In a March 2005 Reuters report in the New York Times on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the 45-member board proclaimed a stark warning, that "human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted" (Reuters, emphasis added).
The time for easy, if it ever existed, is at an end. As a species, we are are becoming the designers of our own demise. If we want to ensure the future, we have to start taking actions now. Action comes in many forms, and it does start with simple steps - simple steps, but not easy steps. As the purveyors of affluent lifestyles, we must be the first to make the hard changes - politically, and personally. We must inspire ourselves, our neighbors, and our governments to take action against the threat of the anthropocene. On this issue, the international community must also come together and implement policy, with concrete measures that member states must hold themselves to adhere to. There are solutions to this problem. I don't have the expertise to list them; but once we realize that the starkness of our situation, and the finite resources we are exhausting, we can face this international challenge together. It doesn't matter whose fault it is; the political blame game has to end. There is no easy way out - but if we focus creative thought and innovation on the emergency that lays in front of us a sustainable future may be possible. The game we are playing with our planet is a zero-sum game, one in which the human race either wins or loses.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI welcome your perusal of my other comments on folks' postings, which will trickle out over the next few days. You might find some of those relevant to your post. I'd also say, if I may, that you might be missing something really important (analytically and strategically) by pointing to 'humans' and to 'us' in your post. We're not all equally capable or culpable re: env. decline -- and one of the great disempowering effects of the '10 simple things' approach is that it tends to say that we are ALL responsible. This narrative has the effect of hiding those actors and structures most to blame, and it also tends to focus the problem on human nature. So...if I may...my caution to you is to beware of the hidden thought traps of point to 'humans' and 'we.' At one very general level, you're certainly correct; but I fear that this language, which some argue has been consciously created for us, hides more than it reveals, to our shared detriment as scholars and activists.