What makes us so special?

You know that feeling when things just really come together in your mind? When you've been trying to learn and comprehend for a long time, but some words and statements are read or heard that just act as the glue that binds the facts you know, your interpretation of them, and your consequent emotions? I am feeling a little bit of that right now, as I am part way through reading Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. (I am, of course, waiting for my mind to be completely blown by the end of the book. I will keep you posted :))

There is a righteous entitlement that humans feel about their lives, their rights, their wants. This is so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of ecological degradation and human health degradation because of human activities. (Read for example, Mind Games, an essay by Sandra Steingraber in Orion, which talks about neuro-developmental disorders because of chemical loading in the environment.) There are of course many characteristics that make us different or special from other species on this planet, be it language, the way we modify the environment, the way we develop technologies, the way we think about the past, and so on. But, Ishmael's point is (to the point that I've read the book), these differences do not exempt us from the fundamental processes and laws that guide all life forms and communities. In thinking we are are god's gift to Earth, thinking that this Earth was meant for human domination, for our lives, we rape it unabated to the extent that we feel we are benefiting from it.

This is something we really need to think about. I see themes of this "special" thinking in the reactions of the elite to the Occupy Wall Street movement, in the responses of the investment bankers and financiers to reform, in the responses of oil and gas executives to stricter environmental regulations, and so on. These people think that they are entitled to the profits they reap, that they are being righteous in their efforts, to the point of benevolence. (See, for example, an eye-opening essay by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, about Art Pope...a really rich man with a lot of influence in North Carolina.) I think that a major movement in environmentalism and sustainability must be founded on the acceptance and understanding that we are decidedly not special, that we cannot hold nature at bay, that we are subject to the ebbs and flows of it.

What do you think makes us special? How can we move away from it?

Children, legacy, and meaning

Given the way we think about legacy and the influences we leave on the world, many wish to leave the world a better place than they found it. That's how those that fought the "Great" Wars thought about the future, and that's how many of our parents think when they sacrifice ("negatively," some might say) for the betterment of their children's lives. 

But there is a disconnect then between the way we are acting now, and of the future we wish for our children. Our actions are in many ways not leaving behind a better world for our children. Rather, the future is one of increased conflict over increasingly scarcer essentials of life, one of climate change (unintentional, or fossil-fuel based, and intentional, or geo-engineering based), one of mass migrations, and (instilling fear in the West) one of a more dominant Eastern hemisphere. In more ways than one, we have conducted ourselves in a libertarian sense. We want every social service that large government and society can offer, like roads, airports and the fire department, but we live insularly, on big plots of land, with our big cars, with our fences, with our increased xenophobia and utter impunity for those that aren't like us. This has definitely created a more complicated world within which to bring children into, ecologically, and consequently politically.

In a post from a couple of days ago, The "entitlement" of having children?, I quoted Lisa Hymas, who decided not to have a child as an American, especially because the burden of American children on the world is much more massive than, say, Indian or Ugandan children. In response to that post, the most regular guest blogger, Jason Lai, said:

"I feel like this attitude is antithetical to what the majority of people would derive meaning from in life... beyond material wealth and (especially) family, what really drives a person? How do you convince a man to save the planet for the children he's not supposed to have? Which is to say, yes, we would not have environmental issues if there were no people, but then what would be the point?"

Jason is wonderfully insightful, and I agree with him. Given biological urges, I can see why many people do decide to have children. But on the other hand, there are other biological urges that we curb in the name of ethics and morality. Some people might choose not to kill even in self-defense. While people can hoard and gorge ourselves with all the so-called "essentials" of living, many live simply, in respect of the world, cherishing its finiteness. How does a biological urge and the quest to derive meaning through children unfold in response to actual problems of culture and society?

The "entitlement" of having children?

In any talk or discussion about climate change, the issue population is like the dark energy of the room. You know the issue is there, and despite its invisibility--some fail to recognise it, others don't want to recognise it-- everyone knows it is affecting every single policy, every single outcome of these talks. Countries such as China and India would likely not even be at the table in climate discussions if one of the discussion points was the issue of their populations. (Let's not forget that the US has the third highest population in the world, and considering the ecological footprint of every single American, as well as how the US chooses to conduct itself internationally, the US's ecological impacts probably far outweigh those of India and China.)

Let's even leave aside "environmental" issues of climate change. Costs of "social" welfare programs like social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as the outcomes of "political" tussles like gerrymandering and redistricting are all affected by changes in population and their values. Costs of all kinds can soar if populations soar; how can you keep everyone that is living now, and that will live in the future, happy?

Population is clearly a massive issue in sustainability, and for some reason(s), we cannot seem to address it. I cannot claim to have a cogent argument apart from the standard, "Population increase is leading to unsustainability." I have to think about it. But a reader of this blog believes having children is a matter of entitlement. In a previous post, On entitlement, I wrote about how there is an entitlement that pervades this culture, an entitlement that allows us to conflate our rights and our wants. In response, Paris said one of the most provocative things I've heard:

[Y]ou forgot a slightly older entitlement, the most controversial one: living children.

Once upon a time most children died in young age, only the strongest, fittest, and most lucky survived, but today we feel entitled to have all our children alive.

And it results in population surpluses that stresses the environment. [A] "scarce future" might mean fewer people, which means (sadly) more deaths. 

Lisa Hymas, an editor for the Guardian Environment Network and a writer for Grist.org has "decided not to have children for environmental reasons." She calls herself GINK: green inclinations, no kids. She writes:

Population isn't just about counting heads. The impact of humanity on the environment is not determined solely by how many of us are around, but by how much stuff we use and how much room we take up. And as a financially comfortable American, I use a lot of stuff and take up a lot of room. My carbon footprint is more than 200 times bigger than an average Ethiopian's, and more than 12 times bigger than an average Indian's, and twice as big as an average Brit's.

When a poor woman in Uganda has another child--too often because she lacks access to family-planning services, economic opportunity, or self-determination--she might dampen her family's prospects for climbing out of poverty or add to her community's challenges in providing everyone with clean water and safe food, but she certainly isn't placing a big burden on the global environment.

When someone like me has a child--watch out, world! Gear, gadgets, gewgaws, bigger house, bigger car, oil from the Mideast, coal from Colombia, coltan from the Congo, rare earths from China, pesticide-laden cotton from Egypt, genetically modified soy from Brazil. And then when that child has children, wash, rinse, and repeat (in hot water, of course). Without even trying, we Americans slurp up resources from every corner of the globe and then spit 99 percent of them back out again as pollution.

Conscientious people try to limit that consumption, of course. I'm one of them. I get around largely by bus and on foot, eat low on the food chain, buy used rather than new, keep the heat low, rein in my gadget lust. But even putting aside my remaining carbon sins (see: flying), the fact is that just by virtue of living in America, enjoying some small portion of its massive material infrastructure, my carbon footprint is at unsustainable levels.

Far and away the biggest contribution I can make to a cleaner environment is to not bring any mini-me's into the world. A 2009 study by statisticians at Oregon State University found that the climate impact of having one fewer child in America is almost 20 times greater than the impact of adopting a series of eco-friendly practices for your entire lifetime, things like driving a high-mileage car, recycling, and using efficient appliances and CFLs.

What do you think?

On entitlement

A couple of days ago, I was listening to an episode of On Being. The guest was Barbara Kingsolver, and she was talking to Krista Tippett about the ethics of eating. Barbara Kingsolver used to live in Phoenix along with her husband and two children, but then decided to move her family to a farm in Virginia, which they had been regularly going to for several years. The reason why she moved was because she realised that the food that her family was eating was coming from very far away, and that from an ecological perspective, this was terribly damaging. She is right, of course. And so over the next year, she and her family grew their own food, prepared everything themselves, ate seasonally, and so on. What struck me most, though, was the fact that rather than staying in the Sun Belt of the US in Arizona, (which has the second fastest growth rate of all states in the US...consider the fact that between 1990 and 2000, the population of the Phoenix metropolitan area grew by 45%) she moved away from it, recognising its role in the unsustainable society we've created for ourselves.

Places like Arizona and the arid West have bloomed from damming of rivers, there is no doubt about this. Yet while people have been moving in droves to these places, their expectations have remained the same. Wherever we go, we want what we've had in other places, and if this comes at the detriment of the environment, then so be it. Take a look at this picture of suburbia in the Phoenix area, which shows parts of Ahwatukee, Chandler, Gilbert West Valley, SW Valley, Scottsdale, and Mesa. You see most every house accompanied with a lawn, maybe with some desert vegetation. And so even when we move to an arid region, we expect our physical landscape to look like that from the water-rich Midwest. In places like Phoenix, outdoor water use for things like lawn account for two-thirds of resident's water use. As Chris Martin, a horticulture professor at Arizona State University mentions, "If you withhold water, desert plants do use less water, but your yard looks like a desert. So there's this big paradox. People say,' Well, I'll plant desert vegetation, but I want it to look green and healthy, so I'll irrigate it so it grows like crazy.'"

There is an entitlement that pervades this culture, an entitlement that allows us to conflate our rights and our wants. Clearly, having a green lawn in Phoenix is a want. But the fact that water from the Colorado River is being channeled to Phoenix under the facade of abundance allows us to demand, almost righteously, that the water be available for whatever we want to use it for. This is the same entitlement that allows us to not think twice before eating a strawberry in winter. It is the entitlement that allows a continued export of a materialistic "development" philosophy to other parts of the world, in the expectation of course that it will benefit us more than it will benefit them. In the end, however, we all lose with this philosophy. Our right to freedom does not allow us to freely destroy. Further, our entitlement to this freedom doesn't mean that the way we've behaved so far is the only way we should behave. What we must do is break from this entitled, abundant past, and accept and embrace a scarce future. We cannot continue to expect that we can have both ecological protection and rejuvenation and a continuation of the lifestyle we've grown accustomed to, indeed, entitled to.

Trash and the commons

A commons problem is a problem of over-exploitation of a resource, or of going along with something because no one really has an individual incentive to act otherwise. For example, fisheries are currently being over-exploited tremendously, because there are no incentives to fishermen to "under"-exploit the fish, because if one of them decides to, other fishermen will just come and catch those fish in the end. So what this fisherman has lost is a chance to support his family. In the end, fisheries collapse, as they are right now. I also think one more reason why commons problems exist is because people feel like they are entitled to whatever it is they are exploiting. It seems as if people feel they have the right to be irresponsible.

How might trash be a commons problem? Well, at least in the US, trash is collected promptly, generally. We don't have to trudge through piles of trash on the streets when you are walking to class. One upshot of this is we really don't know how much trash we are producing. Out of sight, out of mind. But trash is a commons problem in many other parts of the world. The most telling Western example of this is the trash crisis in Napoli, Italy, the birthplace of pizza. In 2008, a trash problem that started in the mid-1990s came into the international spotlight. The landfills in the Campania region of Italy were overfilled, and trash stopped being collected. Convolved with this problem were the mafia and the goverment. You can see the effects of this in this video, which is incredibly shocking, and in pictures here.

Once trash becomes visible, as it did in Napoli, all of the obvious aspects of the commons problem come forth. People continued to throw trash onto the streets. Apparently, more than a million pounds of trash per day were being dumped into the streets. I wonder whether people in Napoli considered fundamentally changed the way they lived and reduced the amount of trash they produced because of it. I would guess not (but I am looking into this), because one extra bag of trash makes very little contribution to the amount of trash being generated.

Let me know if you know anything about this story.