I was thinking about the coal mine accident in Sago, West Virginia. Thirteen miners were trapped in an underground explosion, 12 of whom died in the mine. It goes without saying that it was, and is, a very sad situation. But, like most of the other events we label "disasters", not unexpected. And, like those other events, there is much blame to go around, though we won’t examine that one too comprehensively.

That’s because we’re all to blame. That’s the reality. Of course, not that most of us will ever admit it. The famed psychology pioneer Carl Jung once notoriously quipped "people can’t stand too much reality". We develop acute mechanisms to avoid reality, and we mask it with innumerable drugs, both pharmacological and cultural. Who did what on Survivor? Tune in and see! The world’s ecosystems collapse around us. I didn’t do it!

Yes, you did. So did I. Every time I use electricity, I’m complicit in sending workers into mines or in directing others to blow the tops off of mountains, spilling the debris into the valleys, killing streams, in order to run my computer or play some music. Just like every time I drive my car (even if it is a fuel-efficient hybrid), I’m complicit in everything that’s done on behalf of the global oil business (now there’s a can of worms that, if I weren’t so disciplined [ha], could launch me off on an almost limitless tirade). Oh, I’m not as culpable as the CEO of the mining corporation or the energy conglomerate or the forestry products group who really directs this psychopathological pillage on behalf of his or her fellow executives and shareholders (that’s the corporate way, and it always will be as long as corporations are regarded by the courts as legal "people" with all the rights but not the liability as real people). But I, and you, my fellow citizens, get a share of this.

In a perverse twist, the corporate system has it that raw commodities (like coal), and therefore final products (like electricity) don’t bear the fiscal cost of the legacy of their extraction and development. Those costs are "externalized". We all pay for these "externalized" costs in less visible ways. For example, we pay (in the form of taxes) to safeguard the supply line of petroleum from those who would disrupt it. Likewise, our taxes pay to provide (in the form of public clinics and Medicaid) minimal health-care to those whose bodies are used up in obtaining the raw materials of our lives when their meager wages and benefits won’t do it. The corporations happily stay out of it and concentrate on revenues.

What do we do about it? I don’t know. But I’m through avoiding reality. I won’t look away any more. I’ll shut off the light when I don’t need it (I continue to be astonished when I see these large homes with what appears to be lights on in every room, for no particular reason except it is affordable). I’ll try to be conscious of my consuming ways. And, though it is unlikely they’ll hear me, and it won’t help much, I’ll say this to the survivors of the Sago mine accident: I’m sorry - and I mean it.

Bill Gresham (billgresham@rethinkingtheworld.net) is an environmental scientist who lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

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