World Blog Action Day

In celebration of World Blog Day, here is my little essay on the issues surrounding the "new school" vs. "old school" debate of sustainability. I need to add one cavaet. I realize we are all striving for the same goal and that sustainability is an attempt to market environmental concerns to a new group of people, but I have meet many a person who treat sustainability as some sort of avant garde thinking. Environmentalism, believing in systems beyond just yourself, was pretty avant garde back in the 60's and still is today. The essay is more a response to the sustainability groupies then the actual concept itself, no matter how much of a tongue twister it is.

Enjoy!

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Here’s an idea! Here is how we will reclaim the environment; the whole environment! Forget sustainability! Throw away all it’s derivatives as well: sustainable style, sustainable design, sustainable art, etc. Revert to the actual word environment, realizing it already encompasses everything. You don’t need a Venn Diagram to see that. Both proponents and detractors of environmentalism pigeon hole the concept of environmentalism as something in the exclusive realm of nature. That is where the slur “tree hugger” comes from and why we call our movement as “green” movement.

"Hey, meet the new boss!Same as the old boss!"

Such stereotypes make the movement seem like it never left Walden Pond. That while everything around us falls apart and ecological services go to the way of Woolworth’s, we slap on Birkenstocks and skitter up and down the Adirondack trail. We did leave Walden Pond and we never lived there. The environment in environmentalism means home and, looking at the bigger picture, my home includes the material in my walls and decisions of my politicians. Not just the cries of songbirds in the backyard. Sustainability wants us to think that this is all new and grand. “We killed old-school environmentalism and replaced it with this new concept you will all love!” However, what is so new about looking at the big picture? Even flawed concepts like Malthus and the 60’s Population Bomb viewed environmental degradation beyond how many trees would be bulldozed to make room. They talked about food production and potential conflict over limited resources. The concepts of agriculture productivity and land availability are wide ranging. Americans talked about energy issues and conflict about them back in the 70’s. The English enclosure movement didn’t just fragment ecosystems, but also brought all the issues of feudalism and serfdom. The environmentalist movement has cast the net wide for years, only now realizing that this is the real way to go!

There is power in the word “environmentalism” It conjures up images and whether those images are stereotypical or dynamic, its effect is instantaneous. Sustainability is a conceptual curveball. What is the exact definition of sustainability? I have heard many and they all require a good four to five sentences, or a Herman Melville-esque sequence of punctuation. However, here is a nice definition of environmentalism.

It’s caring about where you live. That’s planet Earth.

Here is another example of imagery and word play. Think about the word “attorney.” What comes to mind? Maybe an empowered Atticus Finch? Johhny Cochran? Stuffy English magistrates with white wigs? Now imagine the word “legal.” Well, what does the hell does that really mean. Sheets of paper that are 11” by 17?” Just like you can’t imagine a legal system without the players in it, you can’t imagine sustainability with the life support systems it means to help. Environment is a powerful word. So is the word environmentalist. That word has done innumerable things. It has pissed off powerful people, created powerful people, cost jobs, found new jobs, asked questions, protested, bombed, sung, cried, voted, chanted, rioted, and had a good time trying to save the world. What do the hell do you even call someone all about sustainability? A sustainability advocate? A sustainabilitizer? Sustainability groupie? Many consider Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, a mother of traditional environmentalism. But did anyone call her a tree hugger back in 1962? Chemical companies attacked her on the fact that she was a woman and that she wrote a book in common vernacular for the masses. Save the birds is a big message in her book, but another big message is “Don’t trust big business.” Environmentalism had dynamic though before the recent surge in sustainability.

What does the average, American third grade class, 4H club, or Lion’s Club do on Earth day? They probably go and pick up litter from a scenic vista. Sustainability sneers at this as too “old school.” It’s a very Western, particularly American, thing to do. Go pick up litter to save all the fishies and birdies. Impoverished people in the slums of Mexico City view those rubbish heaps as treasure troves. And, yes, it is a very American thing to do. The rest of the world better understand the “Big E” environmentalism I subscribe to. But just think about that spot. Maybe it used to be a real nice pond filled with fish that Gramps used to catch. An idyllic pond with fish a jumpin’ and frogs’ a croakin.’ All that garbage on the pond makes Gramps say, “Ah, back in my day that used to be a pond. I wish I could take little Billy there to fish, but, alas, the pond is filthy.” Then, however, that third grade class shows up with their limited view of the environment and we got a nice pond. Now Gramps can take little Billy down to the pond so that he and his grandson can bond. Maybe little Billy won’t spend so much time in front of the Xbox since he will really like to fish. And he will lose a couple of pounds because it takes a while to walk to the pond. And maybe little Billy will want to stay and raise his own family in said town because he wants to share these memories with his own son. Thanks third graders!

I realize this argument is silly and oversimplified. But isn’t it grand how a piece of land can fight obesity and gentrification, while strengthening family bonds? Don’t dismiss the power of a nice piece of a land or a nice community because it will have ripple effects. If a group of inner-city kids cleans up a vacant lot and turns it into a community park, then maybe kids will stay safe and not join gangs. Again, that is an oversimplified example, but it happens and myriad groups strive for such stability. Maybe the people building a community park in the city aren’t thinking about the Redwood trees in California, but being able to walk to a park right in your neighborhood is better for the whole biosphere then everyone driving to a community park.

Sustainability groupies point out their “new” model emphasizes the economic and social issues that environmentalists always forget. Sustainability freaks think about people, profits, prosperity, and planet. However, did our financial decisions only now begin to effect other things besides our wallets. If I buy from a store that treats its employees like crap then that is an environmental decision. Maybe those employees are my neighbors and those neighbors make up my environment. Maybe the store pays people nothing and my neighbor has to pull a double on Election Day. No one wins elections by just one vote, but maybe my neighbor’s vote would have helped get a politician in power who support renewable energy. Maybe the hard working neighbor doesn’t have the time to go to the community clean-up or try to help the poor, who have to go live in the woods at the city limits, because he has to work all day. Maybe that business forces Nicaraguan women to sew sweaters for nine cents a day so that they have even less time to get their community and countries out of the profiteer’s stranglehold. Those women live in my environment, the whole planet, and we will need their help to save the entire biosphere. Maybe I should stop supporting that business.

Just one more maybe. Maybe a sustainability hard liner reads this and says, “Stupid Garik! That is exactly what we are saying.” I know that, but I feel I already had inklings about this when I was just a kid reading 50 Things You Can Do To Save The Earth. It isn’t to say that I was some sort of prodigy, but just that I realized environment where I lived. Why would I want to drink dirty water from the river? Yeah, that makes the birds sick, but it would also make me sick and eight year old Garik pretty much looked out for number one!

The environmental movement has always had room for the bankers, bureaucrats, and, impoverished. The biggest flaw the movement made wasn’t in picking too narrow a viewpoint, but in failing to vocalize how wide ranging the inherent movement was. Sustainability isn’t something new; it is just a reaction to environmentalism earlier misstep. If there were kings and queens of sustainability then they were just environmentalists realizing there were just too many people who thought negatively about the word “environment.” They made up a new word. I don’t think environmentalism needs to die. The power in that word and concept needs to go back to its roots. It’s roots as an idea that everyone wants a good place to live. Some of us already have a comfortable place to start from and others need to get out from poverty or desperation. Environmentalism’s roots as a conceptually American idea born of Muir, Thoreau, Leopold, and even Nixon* and given to the world to adapt and change to every community and ecosystem This is “Big E” environmentalism. The environmentalism we always needed, before detractors said it was just bunch of hippies in the woods, and supporters made it actually a bunch of hippies in the woods. Preaching sustainability as something that will blow environmentalism away only makes a bunch of good-hearted and caring people circle the wagons and shoot in. It makes it easier for those that fail or just don’t want to look at the big picture to profit in the long term. Only a fool would say “I only care about the trees! Fuck everything else!” And we have had such fools (i.e., hippies), but we have always had intelligent people waiting to make a difference for the entire biosphere that includes all of nature’s creations, and those of humanity.

Peace!


Picture source originally UNESCO.