On Environmental Consequences

Have you seen An Inconvenient Truth? It’s a fantastic documentary. I previously had always scoffed at the environmental movement, mainly because of its association with bearded people living in trees and lingering visions of that hilarious Greenpeace boat souped up with megaphones and orange paint going around ramming oil tankers.

However, this film is not only sound scientifically, but about as entertaining as a film about the potential end of the world could probably be. It is devoid of anyone chaining themselves to anything, doesn't mire us in scolding or threats of unavoidable impending doom, but rather gently suggests that unless we want to live in the global equivalent of a dirty tanning bed, we need to start changing how we approach our lifestyles.

I'm down with that. But I think the primary problem with engaging people in the environmental movement is the lack of immediacy in the consequences of environmentally irresponsible actions. It’s the same reason we engage in all sorts of other excessively consumptive behaviours, such as racking up credit cards or cheating on our partners or buying a couch you don’t need, but also don’t have to pay for until 2035. Yes, we all accept that at the rate we’re going, we’re going to cause massive global warming and boil all the whales alive and make our air into nuclear waste and grow tails or whatnot. It’s just that we’re not going to actually manage to do that for at least another thirty or forty years. And while we do feel mildly guilty about handing over a world that looks like the Chernobyl plant over to our children, we can sort of justify away our personal responsibility. Indignance is often a good defense.

“Hey,” you think, “my generation had to deal with the Depression / Cold War / Celene Dion / etc. I didn’t like making soap out of old candles and fireplace ashes / spending my evenings playing Yatzee with the kids in the wine cellar / listening to that god damn Titanic song for seven months straight either, but I managed.”

It’s a little different, of course, but it’s still easy to worry about that tomorrah, as Scarlett would say. Now, if each of us were immediately hit with the negative consequences of our actions, we would see greenhouse gas emissions disappear faster than Rachael Ray’s career potential. Say you threw out a can in the garbage. If, seconds later, a little cloud came and rained some burning acid rain on your head, I bet you’d stop doing that right away. If every time we drove our car to go four blocks down the road, we were attacked by a vengeful spotted owl, we might get out and walk. The other night I left the sink running while I brushed my teeth. Now if I returned to the bathroom to find a Sudanese family displaced by drought in there, I’d smarten right up.

So, Mother Earth, Hurricane Katrina was pretty bad, but you can’t try and appeal to our higher consciousness unless you employ distributive justice. Quit punishing the Third World areas; they're not the ones burning a kajillion gallons of fossil fuels a day. Throw a few natural disasters at Washington DC and you'll see things change in a hurry. Or better yet - go after individuals. If apocalyptic plagues could occur on an individual pro-rata basis, it would probably do quite a bit to deter people from their bad behaviour.

After all, if a mere $0.25 library fine will make you drive ten blocks (in your SUV, no less) to return a book on time, just think what a very small cloud of locusts waiting for you in your walk-in closet would do.

For T, who may have, in her time, hugged a tree or two.