Does it really matter why we do things as long as they get done?
I am attending a conference on issues of communicating climate change to those who don't believe or accept it. Leaders from all areas of the debate, including academia, activism, non-profits, conflict resolution, and corporations have convened in Ann Arbor in an event co-sponsored by the Erb Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Nancy Jackson, a community organiser, and executive director for the Climate+Energy Project in Kansas. She said that to the atmosphere, all that really matters it the amount of carbon dioxide in it. Therefore, it doesn't matter what people think, it matters what people do.
While I find this argument compelling for a second, I am quickly led to think about the greater umbrella that guides our behaviours. Say that we are able to fully "solve" or "address" the issues of climate change through energy efficiency, "smart growth", "green" consumerism, and eating away at the carbon stabilisation wedges. Say we are able to steer the world away from the worst-case scenarios of climate change and sea-level rise. Say we are able to have our cake and eat it too. I wonder then, say one hundred years from now, or one hundred and fifty years from now, will the world be faced with some other massive existential problem? I wonder, if people aren't made to really think about their choices and the consequences of their choices, are we setting ourselves up for an even bigger challenge and hurdle (if that is fathomable) in the future?
Several questions then abound. What sort of legacy do we leave people with? How do we educate and train the next generation? What values do we instill in them? How might we best equip them with the capacities to think through issues facing them and the collectives they are embedded in? Are we making the next generation more resilient than ours? Or are we setting them up for problems that they, too, will kick down the road, if possible?
I think it is powerful to play this out in our own lives. Most all of us would agree that the ends do not always justify the means. For those of us that are not in desperate situations, we would think that selling drugs to pay for the monthly electricity bills is not acceptable. We might start making due with less or cutting costs by being inventive and creative about our electricity use. Many of us would think it unacceptable to leave our very children unprepared for the world by not equipping them with an understanding of human relationships and how to treat other people.
For some reason, we continue to want a better world for future generations, while at the same time undermining their abilities to address the challenges they will face, while at the same time creating even larger problems. So, does it matter what people think? Absolutely.
Showing posts with label legacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legacy. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Thursday, October 6, 2011
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:
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?
Sunday, August 14, 2011
On legacy and time
Time is several things. It can be a measure of experience. The more we go through, the more time we feel has passed. The two weeks my class and I spent in Detroit felt like two months, because the sum of the experiences was tremendous. On the other hand, time might mean something very different for the Hadza in Tanzania, who lead hunter-gatherer lives. Michael Finkel, a journalist who spent time with the Hadza, met up with them in the following way. (I love this story.)
"Merely getting this far, to a traditional Hadza encampment, is not an easy task. Year's aren't the only unit of time the Hadza do not keep close track of - they also ignore hours and days and weeks and months.n The Hadza language (Hadzane) doesn't have numbers past three or four. Making an appointment can be a tricky matter. But I had contacted the owner of a tourist camp not far outside the Hadza territory to see if he could arrange for me to spend time with a remote Hadza group. While on a camping trip in the bush, the owner came across Onwas (the eldest member of the group) and asked him, in Swahili, if I might visit. The Hadza tend to be gregarious people, and Onwas readily agreed. He said I'd be the first foreigner to ever visit the camp. He promised to send this son to a particular tree at the edge of the bush to meet me when I was scheduled to arrive, in three weeks.
Sure enough, three weeks later, when my interpreter and I arrived by Land Rover in the bush, there was Onwas's son Ngoala waiting for us. Apparently, Onwas had noted stages of the moon, and when he felt enough time had past, he sent his son to the tree. I asked Ngoala if he'd waited for a long time for me. 'No,' he said. 'Only a few days.'"
The Hadza have been living in the same place for tens of thousands of years, and are successfully living there right now. Does this have anything to do with how they perceive time?
What about when we are gone, those of us embedded in this degrading culture? What do we leave behind? Will our time on this Earth have mattered? Will our individual lives have mattered? What does time mean in this case? There seem to be two components of our legacy - a physical component, and a less physical, but more emotional and spiritual component. The physical component is comprised of things like trash and non-degradables, buildings and art. The emotional and spiritual component is comprised of what we strove to do with our lives, the impacts of our words and deeds.
When it comes down to it, what do we want to leave behind? I would hope that once we are gone, our physical impacts on this Earth should be as little as possible. Any imprint of our physical existence should decay quickly, or just not be there at all. Trash then becomes a massive problem. And anthropogenic climate change is a physical legacy, too. I would hope that where we once tread, only flowers return year after year, no toxicity, no degradation. What about the emotional and spiritual legacy? I would hope that the good work we do on this Earth, our words and our deeds, have a longer decay time than our physical legacy. But first and foremost, our work must be good, our deeds must be good, our thoughts and actions must be good.
"Merely getting this far, to a traditional Hadza encampment, is not an easy task. Year's aren't the only unit of time the Hadza do not keep close track of - they also ignore hours and days and weeks and months.n The Hadza language (Hadzane) doesn't have numbers past three or four. Making an appointment can be a tricky matter. But I had contacted the owner of a tourist camp not far outside the Hadza territory to see if he could arrange for me to spend time with a remote Hadza group. While on a camping trip in the bush, the owner came across Onwas (the eldest member of the group) and asked him, in Swahili, if I might visit. The Hadza tend to be gregarious people, and Onwas readily agreed. He said I'd be the first foreigner to ever visit the camp. He promised to send this son to a particular tree at the edge of the bush to meet me when I was scheduled to arrive, in three weeks.
Sure enough, three weeks later, when my interpreter and I arrived by Land Rover in the bush, there was Onwas's son Ngoala waiting for us. Apparently, Onwas had noted stages of the moon, and when he felt enough time had past, he sent his son to the tree. I asked Ngoala if he'd waited for a long time for me. 'No,' he said. 'Only a few days.'"
The Hadza have been living in the same place for tens of thousands of years, and are successfully living there right now. Does this have anything to do with how they perceive time?
What about when we are gone, those of us embedded in this degrading culture? What do we leave behind? Will our time on this Earth have mattered? Will our individual lives have mattered? What does time mean in this case? There seem to be two components of our legacy - a physical component, and a less physical, but more emotional and spiritual component. The physical component is comprised of things like trash and non-degradables, buildings and art. The emotional and spiritual component is comprised of what we strove to do with our lives, the impacts of our words and deeds.
When it comes down to it, what do we want to leave behind? I would hope that once we are gone, our physical impacts on this Earth should be as little as possible. Any imprint of our physical existence should decay quickly, or just not be there at all. Trash then becomes a massive problem. And anthropogenic climate change is a physical legacy, too. I would hope that where we once tread, only flowers return year after year, no toxicity, no degradation. What about the emotional and spiritual legacy? I would hope that the good work we do on this Earth, our words and our deeds, have a longer decay time than our physical legacy. But first and foremost, our work must be good, our deeds must be good, our thoughts and actions must be good.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
FRACK YOU - A toxic child worsens a toxic legacy
Fracking seems like the dirty lovechild of mountaintop removal (e.g. for coal) and drilling for oil, a child that is just way crazier than what the genes of its parents would make you imagine.
Like drilling for oil, the natural gas that fracking tries to reach is stored underground, thousands of feet underground. But rather than having the pressure of the oil well pump oil to the surface (think of how the Macondo well spewed high-pressure oil into the Gulf), to get the natural gas, you have to fracture the rock structures in which the gas is trapped. This fracturing requires significant amounts of water, and of course, toxic chemicals (I mean, it just wouldn't be fun without toxic chemicals, right?!). This is a trait inherited from fracking's other parent, mountaintop removal. Just like mountaintop removal, we basically need to blow apart rock to release what it is we want. Mountaintop removal exposes coal, and fracking releases natural gas. What mountaintop removal is capable of doing, and has done to wonderful effect, is contaminate streams and on-land water sources (while at the same time potentially burying them altogether, drastically changing ecosystems). Fracking takes this a step further; fracking contaminates surface water and ground water and aquifers. The toxic brew of chemicals and water from the fracturing of rocks is either stored in containment ponds (basically a liquid landfill, actually just like the storage of sludge from mountaintop removal! Like parent, like child!), or released into streams and rivers. Of course, water treatment facilities are not equipped to treat water for the chemicals used in fracking.
Hmmm, so we're told that fracking is different, that it is safe, and that it is "better" for the environment. Well, it is hard for me to see the difference between what we've done in the past, and what we're doing now. Indeed, a toxic child is continuing and worsening a toxic legacy, just with a different face, a doe-eyed face. So in the end, while natural gas is "cleaner burning" than coal or oil, and releases more energy per unit mass of fuel, it still doesn't address the issue of what it is that is driving ecological degradation - a constant thirst for energy at any cost, a constant appetite to dominate nature, a willingness to treat air and water as dumping grounds. I would hope that people that are pressured into leasing their land for fracking can understand this. And I hope that my parents and their neighbours can fight the companies trying to get their land to frack it up.
Like drilling for oil, the natural gas that fracking tries to reach is stored underground, thousands of feet underground. But rather than having the pressure of the oil well pump oil to the surface (think of how the Macondo well spewed high-pressure oil into the Gulf), to get the natural gas, you have to fracture the rock structures in which the gas is trapped. This fracturing requires significant amounts of water, and of course, toxic chemicals (I mean, it just wouldn't be fun without toxic chemicals, right?!). This is a trait inherited from fracking's other parent, mountaintop removal. Just like mountaintop removal, we basically need to blow apart rock to release what it is we want. Mountaintop removal exposes coal, and fracking releases natural gas. What mountaintop removal is capable of doing, and has done to wonderful effect, is contaminate streams and on-land water sources (while at the same time potentially burying them altogether, drastically changing ecosystems). Fracking takes this a step further; fracking contaminates surface water and ground water and aquifers. The toxic brew of chemicals and water from the fracturing of rocks is either stored in containment ponds (basically a liquid landfill, actually just like the storage of sludge from mountaintop removal! Like parent, like child!), or released into streams and rivers. Of course, water treatment facilities are not equipped to treat water for the chemicals used in fracking.
Hmmm, so we're told that fracking is different, that it is safe, and that it is "better" for the environment. Well, it is hard for me to see the difference between what we've done in the past, and what we're doing now. Indeed, a toxic child is continuing and worsening a toxic legacy, just with a different face, a doe-eyed face. So in the end, while natural gas is "cleaner burning" than coal or oil, and releases more energy per unit mass of fuel, it still doesn't address the issue of what it is that is driving ecological degradation - a constant thirst for energy at any cost, a constant appetite to dominate nature, a willingness to treat air and water as dumping grounds. I would hope that people that are pressured into leasing their land for fracking can understand this. And I hope that my parents and their neighbours can fight the companies trying to get their land to frack it up.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Time capsule
Sherri, Laura, Laura, Katherine and I were talking trash (I like the sound of that) last night at Crazy Wisdom Tea Room, when Sherri mentioned how people, scientists/researchers I assume, once took a core of a landfill, similar to how ice cores are taken to study paleoclimate. She mentioned that they found a phone book from forty years ago, that was remarkable still a phone book; it had not degraded, decomposed, or anything of that nature. (If you want to know how McDonald's Happy Meals don't go bad or decompose, check this out - Sally Davies photographed a Happy Meal everyday for six months, with very little about the "meal" changing...) This got us talking about legacies we would like to leave behind. This is a post I have been thinking about for a while - trash as a time capsule.
I would assume that most of us want to be remembered, at least for a generation or two, for being good people, for being positive influences on our families and communities, or at least for not being, for lack of a better word, bad. We want to be remembered for being there when people needed us, for being a good listener, for being responsible, thoughtful and kind. Indeed, there are social and legal pressures for us to be this way, if we want to live in "civilisation." Word spreads about people's karma; our criminal records just don't seem to go away. Our credit scores follow us whether we like it or not, and so it is better for us to pay off credit card debt on time. We don't want our name sullied with accusations of misconduct, driving under the influence, or indecency. We are held accountable and responsible for our actions, and we "suffer" the consequences of our actions. Now say we were held accountable for the environmental harm we've caused, or more tangible yet, the trash we've produced...
Imagine if we had to write our names, hometowns, and dates on each piece of trash we produce. As we know, most of our trash doesn't decompose over human and multi-generational time-scales, especially in landfills, as Sherri can attest to. Imagine if fifty years from now, people dug up your trash, and saw what trash you produced, and made judgements about how you chose to spend your money, time and effort. Imagine if they made judgements about you as a person, responsible or otherwise. Why did she have to buy that knick-knack from the dollar store that came in a lot of packaging? Didn't she know that Styrofoam is harmful to the environment, both its production and its after life?
How can we be held responsible or accountable for our actions? Indeed, it is the unaccountability that is cause of environmental and social harms. Clearly, if there are rules for behaviour, rules of engagement, people try not to break them, because there are consequences. You pay a fine, you get sent to jail, you are shamed in your community and family. Carbon dioxide molecules don't have the names of those that caused their formation attached to them, and neither does our trash.
What would you like to be remembered for?
I would assume that most of us want to be remembered, at least for a generation or two, for being good people, for being positive influences on our families and communities, or at least for not being, for lack of a better word, bad. We want to be remembered for being there when people needed us, for being a good listener, for being responsible, thoughtful and kind. Indeed, there are social and legal pressures for us to be this way, if we want to live in "civilisation." Word spreads about people's karma; our criminal records just don't seem to go away. Our credit scores follow us whether we like it or not, and so it is better for us to pay off credit card debt on time. We don't want our name sullied with accusations of misconduct, driving under the influence, or indecency. We are held accountable and responsible for our actions, and we "suffer" the consequences of our actions. Now say we were held accountable for the environmental harm we've caused, or more tangible yet, the trash we've produced...
Imagine if we had to write our names, hometowns, and dates on each piece of trash we produce. As we know, most of our trash doesn't decompose over human and multi-generational time-scales, especially in landfills, as Sherri can attest to. Imagine if fifty years from now, people dug up your trash, and saw what trash you produced, and made judgements about how you chose to spend your money, time and effort. Imagine if they made judgements about you as a person, responsible or otherwise. Why did she have to buy that knick-knack from the dollar store that came in a lot of packaging? Didn't she know that Styrofoam is harmful to the environment, both its production and its after life?
How can we be held responsible or accountable for our actions? Indeed, it is the unaccountability that is cause of environmental and social harms. Clearly, if there are rules for behaviour, rules of engagement, people try not to break them, because there are consequences. You pay a fine, you get sent to jail, you are shamed in your community and family. Carbon dioxide molecules don't have the names of those that caused their formation attached to them, and neither does our trash.
What would you like to be remembered for?
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