Let’s face it, with its numerous paradoxes and inconsistencies, we live in a contradictory world. When it comes to environmental catastrophes all we seem to come up with is more and more complicated and environmentally damaging ways to carry on with business as usual. There is no real climate leadership. What we call leadership today, is at best the sum of all lobbying and at worst outright corruption. Most of us appear to be incapable of sacrificing our present comforts and conveniences. It’s a world where short-term economic interests rock and rule.
Barry Lopez wrote in Horizon, that not all of us are willing to face this frightening horizon, some “might opt to turn away, decide to become lost in beauty, or choose to remain walled off from the world in electronic distraction, or select catatonic isolation within the fortress of the self.” Jem Bendell, a UK business school professor, wrote that “while we text ourselves into social frenzy the real problems we face become ever more complex and difficult to address.” Instead of helping to bring the world together on major social issues as its invention promised, social media connectivity often makes the problem worse.
Today, more than ever, our governments should be heeding the warning of Earth. Climate crisis, big boys. Like an abusive relationship Earth can no longer hide her scars and bruises. There are not even enough shelters to protect Earth and her family. Our governments and big business have got to end this marriage of ruthless desire and short-term gain. Have prosperity and entitlement undermined our moral courage or just our intelligence? Where is our ethical compass?
Lopez eloquently wrote, “the same short-sighted, narrow-minded belligerents” rise up in every era of human history. In BC, we have the NDP who should change their party name as they are so old and not so democratic. Clearcutting, LNG plants, fracking, large scale monoculture farming, ignoring Indigenous rights, polluted mines, increased tanker traffic, pipelines, Site C Dam, and on and on. A clearcut, Premier Eby is not a sign of a healthy economy, it is a sign of an indifference to life.
We are crushing our spirits in the constant quest to own better things, to own more things, things that ironically we soon won’t want and will eventually throw away. Ziya Tong in The Reality Bubble, added that “the worse part, is this dependence on acquiring objects tends to worsen when things are tough, because when we feel insecure, having something solid to cling to becomes a coping mechanism.” Our possessions give us some semblance of control over the world.
“Check my $2,500 two-person transparent hull canoe-kayak hybrid made of Lexan! That’s the same material found in the cockpits of supersonic fighter jets!”
Why do we do this? Apparently, the simple answer is we believe that having stuff makes us happy. But we all know that the happiness we get from material goods is only ever temporary. Tong writes, “planned obsolescence and the need to upgrade, stay fashionable, maintain social status have us trapped like hamsters on a treadmill.” It’s known as the hedonic treadmill. And around and around we go.
I sympathize with all of you who are caught up in that undertow of this nightmare, this delusion that a for-profit life is the only reasonable calling for the modern, progressive individual.
Micah White wrote in The End of Protest that “our culture is infected by a commercial virus, a disease that keeps us distracted by illusions while the world collapses.” When we cannot name the species of trees, animals and insects around us but instantly recognize commercial logos, that is worrisome (especially with children).
Of course, it is not possible to live up to one’s own standard of good behaviour every day. Distraction and indifference always offers us a way out of dilemmas otherwise too exhausting or harrowing to face.
Droughts. Water shortages. Flooding. Parades of storms. Wildfires. Atmospheric tidal waves. Dying species. Ocean acidification. Plastics.
Naomi Klein wrote about “cultural cognition,” which is a process that all of us do, regardless of our political leanings. We filter new information in ways designed to protect our “preferred vision of the good society.” It is always easier to deny reality than to watch your worldview shattered.
The climate crisis isn’t just about things getting hotter and wetter. Under our political and economic order, it’s about things getting meaner and uglier: Those who believe they belong to the world and those who believe the world belongs to them.
And then, just when planet Earth needs it least, along comes the Donald (again!), who like many myopic “Christian” conservatives, considers climate change as an affront to his cherished faith: The right of mankind to subdue and destroy Earth and aggressively master nature. I can hear the primal screams already.