When the fate of the big beautiful world and its inhabitants really matters to you there is so much to be concerned about. War, famine, pollution, disease, dwindling natural spaces, super speeds and super sizes; we are hypnotized by the drone of too much of everything. It’s so much to compute that we become desensitized and disconnected. This overload makes it easy to be so distracted that we are unable to discern the underlying continuity of an unhealthy system of attitudes and behaviors. Maybe we need a radically new way of understanding our predicaments and considering our options because these seemingly different issues are beginning to look more and more like symptoms of an ailing paradigm than they are individual problems to be solved separately. Our lifestyles are getting the best of us. We feel no connection so we assume no responsibility as individuals. There are so many folks who care and yet we seem to be assuming that any lasting improvements will have to be developed and instigated by our leaders in government and industry, after all ‘what can little ole me do?’
The very institutions we are looking to for answers are the same ones who perpetuate our predicament. However, it is our sheer numbers as citizens and consumers that make their leadership and power possible. What would happen if we began to take matters into our own hands regarding our own lives and actions? What if we stopped buying the belief systems and products they sell? What if we learned to slow down, simplify, savor and make the best of our lives with a little less? What if we had an awareness of our intrinsic interdependence to all the resources that create the conveniences we so take for granted? What if we began making changes in our own lives instead of waiting for our authorities to deem them right and necessary through legislation?
Those who profit from our dwindling attention spans and unabated consumption will do all they can to keep the status quo. They do not want us to know the true costs of continuing as we are. Therefore it should be of little surprise monitoring the utter lack of mainstream newspaper and television coverage in the U.S. of the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report’s release. It’s big news in other parts of the world but we must not have time for such trivialities.
1300 experts from 95 countries spent 4 years on an unprecedented study of the state of the earth’s ecosystems and what they discovered is sobering for anyone who has been determined enough to ferret out the information through alternative news sources.
What is quite distressing is the fact that Americans are being given little opportunity to weave this tidbit of momentous information into their cache of awareness. According to the report 60 % of the earth’s ecosystems are degraded and it looks like it will only get worse. Our habits, our processes, our unexamined consumption and need for speed are disrupting the earth’s ecosystems upon which we rely completely for our continued survival as a species. One has to question the level to which those in power will strive, connive and cover in order to manufacture our consent.
Being aware of this con-job however does not negate our individual obligation to continue searching for answers as well as mindfully assessing and incorporating constructive adjustments into our own daily habits and actions. So far no one can force me to drive somewhere I can walk nor can I be forced to purchase unethical products with poisonous effects on the environment. Those we believe to be in control cannot make me stop buying organic produce from local growers and they cannot stop me from deciding not to jump on the newest gadget bandwagon. I am free to exercise my curiosity about the world as a vehicle for further understanding and I am free to put my compassion into action. I am free to find the most suitable ways to go about adjusting my own lifestyle to that of a more earth-centered sustainable approach and they cannot do a thing about it. I believe Gandhi when he said to “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” I take it literally, because I can control nothing else but my own behavior.
6 billion pounds of plastic would not be overloading landfills, littering our streets and filling our skies with toxic fumes across the globe each year if we, the purchasers, were not buying it. What kind of difference would simply refilling a reusable stainless steel canteen have on plastics disposal alone? Can we use a little less power in our homes than we did last year, maybe make a point to turn off our lights when we leave the room? Could we possibly try to purchase products and materials that are less disposable and have longer life spans? Think of everything disposable we have woven into the fabric of our lives: pens, napkins, plates, cups, lighters, grocery bags, and trendy fashion. We all have the opportunity to make incremental adjustments to our personal routines without experiencing a great sense of sacrifice or going back to a primitive existence. Each little step we take towards more sustainability is amplified by the accumulated actions of others choosing to do the same in their own way.
Are any of us looking at the big picture?
Can any of us stop long enough to step back and view the broader perspective of who we are and what we are truly facing as human beings on the cusp? The answers lie within us and around us in the living world but they do not lie in what has positioned itself between us and the natural world; commercial culture. Commercial culture in the form of mainstream media, hyper advertising and power politics has tried to tell us what is important and what counts but it refuses to take into account that which counts most to our physical survival, the earth’s ecosystems. To continue our lives with little regard for its true cost is to proceed down the path of the doomsday economy. Without healthy ecosystems that provide our clean air, fresh water, nutritious food and safe shelter, the ipods, stock options, facial tissues with lotion and Go-gurt are superfluous.
It’s a paradox to imagine that by beginning within our selves any worthwhile progress can be made. But if we do not take the time and the risk of examining what motivates us versus what moves us we make terrible mistakes that affect us all. What, after all, is driving us to believe we need so much?
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth can save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
--Gnostic Gospel of Thomas
In his new book The Science of Disorder, Dr. Jack Hokikian eloquently describes our general lack of awareness of one of the most basic tenants of modern physics; the laws of thermodynamics. Many of us may be familiar with these laws from high school or college science classes but how they relate to our inability to take into consideration the consequences of our actions is worth the reminder. The second law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of entropy, states that for every use of energy or process there is a side effect or consequence, often unexpected. Without a working understanding of this basic law of nature we do great harm by not taking the time to consider the potential ill effects of the technologies and processes we have come to depend on and continue to employ. A further rush to faster and “smarter” technology will not ease our threat to the planet; it will increase the effects of entropy in action.
Our current economies consider these side effects to nature as externalities, in other words, something that is not taken into consideration. Our government leaders and politicians who are bought into places of power with the money of their big-industry counterparts may not yet be ready or willing to incorporate an awareness of what entropy is doing to our ecosystems and to our personal health, but we can. We can begin to think of our brothers and sisters across the globe and out of curiosity and compassion strive to better understand the cost of our consumption. We can begin to look at the living world around us and strive to behave more gently and more gratefully for the resources and natural services we share in common and cannot live without. When we walk across our homes and turn on our water taps, or wake up and inhale deeply of fresh air, or eat fresh wholesome food or use electricity to power our laptops for work, we can take a moment and simply feel awareness and appreciation for the most vital of life’s elements upon which we so intrinsically depend. The earth gives them freely and it is up to each and every one of us to decide whether we are willing to protect these for our future generations. Do we have the courage to look at the big picture? Are we brave enough and determined enough to look within ourselves for the roots of our habits?
We need to stop waiting for our so-called representatives in government and commerce to project the progressive American values we hold so dear and begin to project them ourselves. Many of us care even if the mainstream newspapers do not yet have the courage to tell it like it is. We each have the power to change our own attitudes and actions; the choice is ours and ‘they’ cannot do a thing about it.
Catherine Sundberg is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles and she can be contacted at suncat66@aol.com
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