A bit early I know, but I’m going to be busy working on some other things this week, then I’m off to Taos, NM for a few days. So here it is. Enjoy.
On 7/7/07, more than 10 million people tuned in to watch Al Gore’s Live Earth™, “The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis.” In case you were in a coma that day, Live Earth was a 24-hour, 7 continent (including Antarctica—I’ve heard they’ve got a great music scene there) concert series that brought together more than 100 mainstream music artists and 2 billion people to “trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.”
I really tried not to be cynical about this thing because I do appreciate the increased awareness. Plus Al Gore and Madonna certainly have the power to reach populations of people that would never give me the time-a-day. Perhaps the millions of people who signed the Live Earth Pledge™ will act on their commitment and think critically about it. Or, maybe they just wanted to see their name appear on the Live Earth jumbo-tron.
On the surface, it would seem that any environmentalist would be doing back flips in their Chacos upon hearing word of a global concert that raises awareness about global warming. I mean, one couldn’t turn the television on that day without hearing the word “green,” and every other Myspace bulletin I received hyped up the event. So why did I think the whole thing was a sham?
Increased awareness is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. We need everyone on board if we are going to have a planet that will support life in the future. But what kind of awareness and “solutions” are being touted here?
Let’s take a look at the content of The Live Earth Pledge™ and we’ll see what Al Gore says will save the planet. “1. I will change four light bulbs to CFLs at my home.” “2. I will ride public transit or carpool one or more times per week.” 3. I will shop for the most energy efficient electronics and appliances.” “4. I will forward a Live Earth email message to 5 friends” (at this point, I have coffee coming out of my nose). “6. I will shut off my equipment and lights whenever I’m not using them.”
The list goes on. It does get a little better, but like these first 6 commitments, they all reinforce the notion that nothing fundamental about the way we live on this planet has to change. Perhaps most importantly, none of these things are solutions to global warming, and they should not be touted as such.
My pledge would be short and to the point: “I will do whatever it takes to stop industrial logging, stop industrial agriculture, stop the murder of the oceans, put an end to factory farms, remove dams to liberate rivers, and put an end to the destruction of communities, both foreign and domestic.”
Perhaps after all these CFL light bulbs burn out in 7 years and the toxic mercury contained in them seeps into our local environment, people will begin to look at things differently. Perhaps, at this point, our culture might finally realize that the environmental problems we face are much more complex, that real solutions are tied to the institutional foundations from which our civilization is based.
Last month, I interrogated the discourse on sustainability in the hopes that people might begin thinking about what sustainability really means and what sort of products, such as automobiles, will never characterize a sustainable future. In short, we’re not going to buy our way out of our environmental problems. Change will come when we look at our existence on this planet in a new way (which is actually a very old way).
We will have to give up a lot; that is simply the reality. I’m not in a position to say exactly how our transition to sustainability will unfold, but right now we have the choice to make this transition a voluntary one. In the near future, we won’t have that luxury. Part of this process, which thoughtfully interrogates and restructures the way we live on this planet, requires that we also think critically about our conceptualization of waste.
First of all, what does sustainability really mean? It is worth noting that there is currently no standard definition, from which standards are gauged, for sustainability. Maybe this is why we’re so confused. There is a little irony here. If one believes the stories of science, we’re the most intelligent beings on the planet, yet we’re the only animals that don’t know what it means to live sustainably.
We’re also the only animals on the planet that, simply by living here, do nothing to improve the land. We take and take and denude the landscape until there is nothing left. We’re the only ones, save perhaps cyclical locust invasions, that do this. Even in death, as we rot in caskets 6-feet under the ground, we block the land from using our bodies as we decompose.
I’ll take a stab at a reasonable definition, and I’m open to suggestions. A sustainable existence may be defined as any way of living that gives as much as it takes, thus supporting, respecting, and engaging in active relationships with those systems of live necessary to support ones own life. This means, if I eat elk, and rely on elk for my life, I am responsible for the continuation of the elk and its community—meaning everything that supports the life of the elk. If I don’t take responsibility, if I don’t engage in that relationship, there will be no more elk and my way of life will not last. And every animal knows this but us.
Live Earth taught me, if it taught me anything, that we are only capable of baby steps. I spoke on the phone with our local Sustainability Manager, Nicole Woodman. Part of her job, as is mine, is to engage the public and to help influence the way in which our city thinks about our impact on the land around us.
“When you talk about consumption, you need to also talk about education,” Nicole said. At this point, “we’re trying to instill a level of accountability.” It is hard to be accountable for problems that are largely invisible to the public. Flagstaff’s landfill, for example, is located over 10 miles northeast of town. Citizens don’t have to see the consequences of our way of life, which Nicole describes as “a throw away culture.”
“It’s way out there,” she said, “it’s hidden.” Just for kicks, I drove by it this afternoon. The wind was blowing hard, as monsoon rains were approaching. I have to say, the road leading up to the landfill is a beautiful one. Winding through dense forest to the right and spectacular views of the peaks through the prairie grasses to the left, the landfill is about two miles or less from 89 on “Landfill Road”. I was thinking about how vague the word “landfill” is. I mean when you say the world landfill, nobody asks what they’re filling the land with; everyone knows you’re talking about waste.
I often wonder, if aliens came down from outer space, what would they make of the artifacts of our civilization? I think our landfills would be the most telling. From where I’m looking, the garbage—which is constantly being moved, shuffled around, and buried—is mostly paper. Of whatever percentage is paper, roughly 20 to 30 percent of it is fast food remains. There is also a separate pile, towards the front, dedicated to broken televisions. To my left is “green trash,” which can only be described as a giant pile of grass clippings, dirt, and scattered weeds of all varieties.
Trucks drive in, dump, drive out. Trucks drive in, dump, drive out; day in and day out, 362 days out of the year—for-ev-er. The aliens would think we’re very weird indeed.
The first thing I noticed as I walked the fence, however, was the bags. Thousands of white plastic grocery bags flew through the air like a flock of seagulls. The wall seemed to be serving its purpose pretty well, in terms of containing most of the bags. Yet the surrounding area, trees, and shrubs were covered in bags, flapping violently in the cool summer wind.
I was the only one at the landfill in a car, which obviously makes sense. I was also the only one there taking pictures of the trash, which made me stick out even more. Nonetheless, everyone I ran into was very nice. As I walked along the back perimeter fence, careful to look where I was going, I had a clear perspective of the immensity of our landfill. It’s huge. It’s also well-managed, considering what they’re up against.
Nicole told me that Flagstaff currently spends tens of thousands of dollars on cleanup efforts, and bags are not very easy to get out of trees. The bags need to go. They, like many of the thoughtless consumables produced, should never have been made in the first place.
I thought of the ordinance that San Francisco recently passed, which places a ban on all plastic bags from grocery stores and pharmacies and Eugene, OR, which banned Styrofoam a few years back. San Francisco is now beginning to offer compostable bags made of cornstarch instead of oil.
I went home and called San Francisco. I was curious how such an ordinance was passed. I talked to Boris Delepine, the aide of Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who sponsored the ordinance. He said the idea is really catching on, that Seattle, Baltimore, and Annapolis are trying to pass similar legislation. “We went after the largest producers of bags,” said Delepine, “namely the grocery stores and pharmacies.”
Flagstaff has like 17 grocery stores, so I’m sure if such an ordinance was passed here, it would be similar. I got excited and asked Nicole if similar legislation could be passed here. “I’m researching our options at this point.” At first, I have to say, I thought she was just giving me lip service…as one who has interviewed many city officials during my writing career, I’m pretty used to it. Nicole, however, went on to explain the issue from a practical local level, which I really appreciated.
“The landscape of Flagstaff, Arizona is much different” than the land under and around San Francisco. San Francisco has a municipal compost service, so citizens can throw all their biodegradable material in one of these compostable bags and the city will pick it up. Flagstaff doesn’t have municipal compost due to the dry climate of the area. “While San Francisco can offer that service because it only takes the bags 10 to 45 days to compost, it would take roughly 2 years here.”
That makes sense, but it doesn’t stop the fact that the oil-dependent plastic bags should not exist in the first place. Plastic bags and Styrofoam are just the tip of the melting ice burg in terms of what needs to go. A thousand years after one takes their last sip of that nasty gas station coffee, the Styrofoam cup will remain. There is no excuse for that.
It’s 2007 and the Earth and all its life support systems are in crisis. Why do manufacturers continue to produce packaging that can only be used once? If it can’t be recycled and used again in one way or another, such as many plastics and specific papers, why do they still exist in the market?
I asked this question on my website and received the answer immediately from a friend of mine in Eugene. “Throwaway products continue to be produced because they are cheap, in the sense that many of their true costs are externalized and the cost to industry is minimal relative to alternatives,” he said.
In a culture that continues to put the needs of the economic system above the needs of the natural world, I can follow the attempt at logic. It’s still insane, however, and it still can’t last. Nicole touched on this subject as well. “We don’t look at the full cost of anything.” When we buy something and throw it out, it’s as if it disappeared. We’re privileged enough not to think about the fact that, like Styrofoam, our trash will outlive us.
Personally, I don’t want to pay the true cost of anything either. I don’t think you can put a price on a piece of trash that will continue to toxify the environment for a thousand years. Simply put, products that come with such extreme environmental consequences should not be manufactured. Period. And this list, of course, goes far beyond plastic bags and Styrofoam.
Nicole said it all comes back to making smart choices, but we have to be real with ourselves and make truly informed choices. And when no suitable choices exist, citizens need to demand alternatives.
“Contact City Council and express your concerns,” said Nicole. The Sustainability Commission meetings are held on the second Wednesday of every month. The next one is 4:30 P.M., August 8th, at City Hall. Nicole will bring the issue of plastic bags to the table. See you there!
