Part of the role of an Environmental Sector Volunteer serving with Peace Corps Philippines is to educate locals about the environment and advocate for responsible use. This means that we give lectures or presentations about the web of life and mangrove deforestation, about global climate change and soil erosion. As the impending worldwide environmental disaster looms, this is what environmental sector volunteers in the Philippines are doing help in the battle. While taking canoe rides through mangroves, we point out trees that have been cut by a local for firewood for his family, and critique the illegally harvested tree, or, when we go fishing with the locals, we vilify the use of fine mesh nets that harvest young immature fish. Although this is all good stuff to talk about, it really feels like a waste of time to talk to locals about single trees and candy wrappers when huge tracts of land are being cleared for fishponds and commercial fishing vessels illegally trawl waters for a huge number of fish while the locals strive for a livelihood. We tell kids to pick up their candy wrappers to keep from littering, and to get fruits like mangos and bananas for snack instead of potato chips to decrease their packaging waste. It reminds me of school programs when I was in elementary, singing about turning off the tap to save water, picking up cans, recycling, reusing, reducing, blah blah blah.
These are all well and good. It's great to talk to kids and locals on the grassroots level about changing attitudes and habits to live in a more sustainable way. 'Pick the low-hanging fruit', as they say, and get to the easiest people and places first. These past months, as I've been reading about our national environmental policy over the past few decades, I've begun to see that we've been picking the low hanging for over 30 years now. Even here, politicians target locals harming the environment in small ways instead of growing backbones and going after those who have an incredibly larger role in environmental degradation. I've come to believe that if one is having fun working to save the environment, they're probably not doing anything that meaningful, since real progress will come from doing the hard things, having the hard conversations, making the hard choices. In the arena of environmental change, I think we're past being able to make meaningful change while compromising. Some things simply can't be compromised. Back in the 1960's, the U.S. was able to pass huge environmental bills with democrats and republicans working together, but since then, our love of corporations and respect for money has greatly superceded our love for the environment and respect for quality of life. The constitution gives great power to corporations and the private sector, and has greatly influenced our collective hold (or lack thereof) on the power of big oil and multi-nationals. Thomas Jefferson said that we should retain the ability to revise the constitution every generation, to meet changing needs, but I think too many people see the constitution as some sort of static Bible-type document, that's laced with proverbs that somehow will relate to the human condition for the rest of eternity.
The fact is, that our founding fathers had no inclination that one day we would have huge corporations in charge of fossil fuel reserves in foreign lands and in our domestic waters, leading us to flatten mountains and dredge up sands. Founding fathers had no idea about greenhouse gases, solar radiation, dynamics of polar ice caps and the like. We were able to live for the first hundred years of the industrial revolution like the economy and economic growth were the only things that mattered. No longer is that the case. Environment will have to take president over economics in the next phase of the human experience if we seek to continue to live in any sort of balance. There is no way to maintain the current priorities of growth and economics and maintain environment too. Something has to give, and yet, us humans continue to live as if we can save the environment and decrease consumption while simultaneously chasing that dream that everyone has for monetary prosperity and unlimited growth. It's time to rediscover satisfaction.
Personally, I don't think it will ever happen. I don't see anyone on top making the changes that will actually make a dent in the environmental dilemmas we face. As politicians continue to play politics and the loophole games in air conditioned chambers, the ecosystem outside continues to react to the degradation of missed opportunities just like any other sickened system would. We have created a world within our world, where our heads are shaded by some sort of roof most of the day, except for 15 minute breaks before we go back to stare at electronics and paperwork. The further we distance ourselves from the environment, isolated within cubicles, the easier it will be to let millions of years of living history all slip away. In our 200 years of extreme 'progress,' we've inflicted a mass extinction on earth that rivals that of the Ice Age. Nature will go on with or without us, there will be microbes and insects left even if we wipe everything else out with a devastating heat wave. The only problem is that we will have erased the human species and many other higher vertebrates from the history of the planet, and wasted billions of years of evolutionary brilliance.
Answer these questions: When was the last time you slept out under the stars? When was the last time you held a fish? A bird? What are the names of 7 birds that fly in your backyard? How many trees are in your backyard?
Now answer these: When was the last time you slept in a hotel? When was the last time you held a shopping cart? A steering wheel? What are 7 types of cars that you have seen drive by? How many channels do you have on the cable plan?
We're becoming increasingly detached from what used to be the real world, and are spending too much time inside our spaceship-type cocoons.
This is the point in the blog where I give my answers to all of the problems, explain how I live differently, am more 'in-tune' with things, and implore everyone else to be like me. However, I'm living in my cocoon just the same, staring into my electronic screen, enjoying the electricity and rare-earths that put my computer in my lap. I don't know what the future holds or how to solve these problems, but feel that whatever the cure for this sorry state we're in, it will require lots of sacrifice and for us to refocus on where we came from, and not where we are going. Our shared origins, and not a manifest destiny.
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