Dec. 20, 2011
Want to be spoon fed an apologist's resolved defeat in an all you can eat, bottomless barrage of fatalism? If this sounds like something you could go for right now, read today's TIME Science article
"Winning the Conservation War: How to Manage the World We're Stuck with"
It really crystallizes so much of what's wrong, and what cannot be made right in the world. The mainstream mentality so often heard now, complacency.
So, Time's piece encourages us to be complicit to a "reality" to which we are subjected and of which we are subjects at once;
From the article:
"...a recent scientific review that looked at 240 studies of different types of ecosystems following major disturbances like deforestation or oil spills, and found that the abundance of plant and animal species recovered at least partially in 72% of them."
They call this "winning."
How very Anemic and pathetic.
In this Time article, the most solemn and sickening sentence I see is this:
"In a world where economic values almost always trump environmental ones this may be the best we hope for"
So, do economic values trump everything? Maybe in a world to which the apologists would damn us all. In that world, those who would think of revolting, the message is, "You Lose."
It seems to me there is often displayed in certain corners of the media, this arrogant agreement toward conciliation. A "bow" to moneyed interests which seemingly prevail in all aspects of the physical world to a degree that is disheartens if you know of no other reality.
There is certainly a tense resolve in our collective situation that can urge most of us toward denial and distractions a-plenty. The burdensome sense of truth is met with what must surely be the ultimate, "Fuck It!" a la the
Bohemian Grove's infamous "Cremation of Care" ritual.
Some folks really know no other way than the one they're in, and the one that is also, in effect, doled out to us. Some, likely most, folks wake in the morning to a reality that more and more, they did not choose for themselves; they wake to a life that is less and less of their own design. We are born into a prescribed sense of fatalism, we are defined. We are defeated.
But are we damned?
If not, then, what does saving ourselves even look like?
We cannot choose to walk, or ride Bicycles instead of driving a car because, in many areas there are too many dangers. Limited or nonexistent access to this option or many others leads some to fight for bike-lanes and awareness. Some take this front and a few in some more progressive urban areas make it their life's work. It is one battle in the war.
We can seek out or work to build up alternative economies, smaller, local economies. Worker Co-ops. Local barter groups, "hours exchange" programs, local currencies. Buy from makers you know. Make for ourselves, DIY. Skillshares. Many actively reject the extreme specialization that creates dependency on the destructive system. "Don't be a cog." Some take this front. It is one battle in the war.
We look for ways to reuse things, recycle, use it up, make do.... but then we learn that recycling garbage into fabric and selling it back to us is bad for the oceans... It's all garbage. A plastic world. Garbage in, garbage out. The laws of conservation of matter are a real bitch.
Solution: Choose local, organic foods. Organic fibers. Natural organic fibers. Flax. Hemp. Cotton. Wool. Non gmo. This is another front.
We innovate, cut back, shore up and access renewable energy. Some opt for wind, photovoltaics, masonary stoves, coppicing managed woodlots, use of passive solar, fuels made from recycled vegetable oil, alternative building, alternative lifestyles, public transport, rail...
Another front.
In the city, programs are underway to figure out how to grow food vertically, or to reclaim and
remediate such nastiness as mercury and lead in unused lots through a process of chelating pollution by growing sunflowers. Growing healthy food nearby. Security from fluctuating food prices, and processed foods that make us sick... Food justice. It is one of life's greatest pleasures to understand what there is to
appreciate about the ability to eat healthy, tasty, slow food. When
more people come to see what factory farms are really up to, we can
choose to become vegetarians or vegans, even for only one day a week,
and it cuts the problem by 1/7th.
Another front.
We can demand, or build our own, homes that are within the landscape, not on it. We can build with natural materials, locally sourced, renewable. We can live in homes that are scaled down, comforting, nurturing, protective. As it turns out efficient and small is also smart. The opportunity to adopt minimalism is always at hand. Give away "stuff", and stop buying more. Far more people can choose to go with a low tech lifestyles, head on back to the earth. Alternative building. Rammed earth. Strawbale. Another front...
So the more this information is shared, becomes known, becomes our first hand experience, then the more support for our own industriousness at hand instead of industry imposed upon us we shall see. (Unless we're repeatedly denied access to such occasion, experiential learning, information, and resources, which is why co-ops and community initiatives are of vital importance now.)
It is in us, we have evolved to sow and grow, and it is still with us since long before marketplaces, or our propensity to sell and buy.
As it turns out, it's helpful, healthful to green things up, and it's
not "rocket science", though science is immensely helpful when applied
to something of use.
Back to the earth.
Will more and more of us move away from the technology, refusing to be "in on it", or will we continue to play along nicely?
It is becoming harder for the dungeon masters to convince the players to continue on with the status quo. It's becoming obvious that human beings will fuck a majority of their own selves out of existence on the current trajectory.
By creating my own life, right where I am and wherever I go in the future, I can increase my own "environmental values" in all the ways I possibly can find to do so. Breaking from a world where economic values trumps all else. Finding out ways and means to make my whole life, everything about it, into an endeavor of activism and protest.
over 30 years ago, my dad abandoned my mom and I. When he came to get his remaining things, I questioned his cold stare. I mustered the guts to ask him how he could sit there and watch his own daughter cry like that and not even flinch. He said, "That's just the way it is"
To this day, these words lift me out of complacency, out of apathy, and move me to action, because that was how it was to him, in his world. In my world, what was happening was inconceivable, and remains so to this day.
I am sick of having the values of the world explained to me, being told, this is just how it is.
When I make up my mind that I simply refuse to be complicit in predefined, status quo, traditions that support the reality that was created for me without my say, that alone eliminates a reality that has been dictated to me, and all in my society. I strive to see, and hope to understand the world, not based on what I've been told, or what others believe, but solely on face value. I want to see the reality in the world for what it is; Not for what others see, or what I'm told it is, So often there is a pre-arranged lie everyone agrees upon. Everyone goes around telling each other these same lies again and again.
