Can Environmentalists Live up to Their Own Standards?

Environmentalists are chided for
"preaching to the choir." But what happens when those of us in the
"choir" aren't doing enough?

By Janisse Ray, Orion Magazine

Posted on September 10, 2007, Printed on September 10, 2007

http://www.alternet.org/story/61872/

an excerpt

Every day, in thousands of actions large and small, we who
profess to love the Earth are making decisions that destroy it. Some of these
choices are unavoidable, to be sure. But in many cases we could easily choose
less harmful options and not suffer measurably, if at all.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me in life is contradiction. There
is an ancient enmity between deed and creed, it seems. Knowing the complexity
of the human psyche, my own included, I never expect the two to align perfectly.
Nor are contradictions easy to recognize in ourselves. However, when words and
actions are obviously incongruous, I start to feel crazy, and in the face of
new and startling evidence of environmental catastrophe, the contradictions are
almost too much to bear.

Are we committed enough to
really make change? Are we part of being change, or are we just talking about
change? Do we consider every decision we make? Do we analyze our own impact and
work to decrease it, day by day? Do we continually strive to get by with less?

Or are we, too, alongside the unenlightened multitudes, living in
denial, turning our heads from the true consequences of our actions? Are we
still living safely, properly? Are we unwilling to give up our memberships? Are
we unwilling to look different, to act different, to stand behind our beliefs
even if we might be considered eccentric or even losers by the dominant
culture? Are we granting ourselves exemptions? Do we justify harmful actions
because they're done on behalf of the Earth? Or worse, do we justify them
because we think we're already doing enough?

And, having been taught so well to act -- to be activists -- are
we able to see that the best decisions may not look like action? That the right
action (as with the Chicagoan) may be staying closer to home?

Many times I have attended some gathering or other to speak about
environmental issues, and when the final word has been delivered, the final
question debated, refreshments are served on plastic plates and in plastic
cups. I prepare my remarks. I take
a deep breath, step in front of
the crowd. I rant, I rave, I weep and open my heart. I preach fire and
brimstone, and the punch is served in plastic cups. I cannot tell you the
horrible feeling that envelops me.

Now, when invited somewhere to speak, I send a sheet ahead of
time asking organizers for an environment-friendly event: paper instead of
plastics; no Styrofoam; if possible, real flatware and dinnerware; at least
biodegradable flatware; recycled paper in fliers and press releases; services
provided by local businesses; locally grown and organic food preferred for
meals or receptions; receptacles for recycling; carpooling encouraged.

These guidelines, with many more that you or I have yet to imagine,
are ones that we need to employ every hour of every day. We have to believe
with our bodies what we know in our minds to be true. We have to accept the
solutions to our environmental problems as personal and start applying them
personally, and then all around us.

Given that our government won't
ratify the Kyoto Protocol or take steps to limit production of carbon and other
greenhouse gases, we choir members have to sign the Kyoto treaty individually,
or take a pledge to reduce our personal emissions 30 percent in the next two
years and 80 percent by 2050. We also have to keep applying pressure to
government, and holding our elected officials accountable. If we're not doing
it, who is?

Living a lie destroys the spirit.

It is a kind of mental illness, a schizophrenia.

It also undermines our credibility.

That's why An Inconvenient Truth disappointed me. The night the
film premiered in Brattleboro, my husband and I bicycled to the theater and
waited in line for tickets. Afterward, we were uplifted: we knew millions of
people would watch the movie and would change. I remain grateful for the film
and the effect it's having, but what I remember most now are its
contradictions. In scene after scene, Al Gore gobbles up fossil fuels: he's
behind the wheel of an SUV, he's going through customs, he's on a plane, he's
being driven through a city. Even when demonstrating a graph about rising
temperatures, Mr. Gore doesn't climb a ladder affixed to the wall. No, he mounts
a hydraulic lift.

I have been accused of being judgmental. Lean in instead of
leaning out, I've been told. Judge not that ye be not judged. But I wonder if judgment is really a bad habit -- or if the social
taboo against passing judgment simply allows us to feel safer in our own
hypocrisy.

Whether we be heads of state or directors of organizations or
worker bees or armchair cheerleaders, we in the choir are leaders and role
models. We, of all people, have to show that life can be lived differently, and
that the reimagined life can be beautiful, functional, and overflowing with
rewards none of us expected.

So the question becomes: what should the choir look like? And:
what do I have to do to belong?

We can look to Susana Lein for part of the
answer. Lein runs Salamander Springs Farm near Berea, Kentucky. She spent the
better part of the 1980s as a landscape architect in the Boston area, then
seven years living in her husband's native Guatemala, learning to live simply,
making do. When her marriage ended, she returned to the United States, bought
ninety-eight acres with friends, and began to live on the land in a tent. She
farms six acres without tillage or chemicals of any kind. A designer and
alternative builder, she is also a person determined to live within her means
and the means of the Earth. She built a rough house by raiding dumpsters for
building supplies and trading labor with friends. She uses a composting toilet,
a spring for water, solar energy.

I heard Lein speak at a Northeast Organic Farming Association
conference. What attracted me to her talk was its title: "Creating a Farm
and Homestead on Marginal Land (While Penniless)." Humble and unassuming,
private and down-to-earth, Susana Lein was the most inspiring person I'd seen
in a long time. Without a doubt she walks the talk.

We also need to recognize that others in the choir may not look
the way we expect them to. My father the junkman belongs in the choir, although
he would never call himself an environmentalist. He's never flown in a
passenger jet and rarely travels by car beyond his home county. He lives
simply, makes do. That he never went to college, never read Aldo Leopold, and
may not have heard of carrying capacity matters not. Now is as good a time as
any to shed our preconceptions about what an environmentalist looks like, and
to recognize that the most unlikely people are going to be allies in the quest
for sustainability.

The good news is that I'm starting to see more determination and
more personal accountability. Recently I spoke to environmental educators in
North Carolina during an eco-picnic in a longleaf pine grove on Fort Bragg. The
day was sunny and gorgeous. Lois Nixon, who organized the event, made sure that
picnic lunches were served in reusable cooler bags, that napkins were cotton
washcloths, and that most of the lunch was local and organic. She distributed
compact fluorescent bulbs (donated to the group) to offset some of the carbon
generated by travel.

I'm talking about bringing our
actions into better alignment with our aspirations for the
Earth.

I want to see our communities get more and more
localized, with more local food produced and consumed, more local goods bought
and sold. I want to see local entrepreneurship and craftsmanship
encouraged. I want a renaissance of the hands, so that we use fewer
electrical gadgets and motorized tools.

I want to hear of an organization that decides, because of the
climate crisis, to cancel its annual conference. I want to see us relying on
the mail and conference calls and e-mail for corresponding with distant
colleagues, and engaging more deliberately with our neighbors. I want to see us
using petroleum as if it were precious, which is to say sparingly and wisely,
driving shorter distances and less often; in fact, I want getting in a
single-occupancy vehicle to be a last resort.

I want us to get radical. I want us choir members to make even
the hardest decisions while holding the Earth in mind.

I want us to raise the bar for
ourselves.

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