I grew up burning things. It was never malicious, unlike my friend who started a fire under his neighbor’s outdoor propane tank because he thought it might blow up their house.
No, my fires were much more innocent – the occasional ant pile and the weekly barrel of trash, filling my wagon with water and leaded gas then lighting it afire, throwing a dozen lit matches over my shoulder then turning to see how much of the dry July grasses in the mountain meadow had burned and hoping I could stomp out the flames before they got carried too far by the afternoon breeze. Summer was a favorite season specifically because things were dry and more likely to burn, and if it was a wet summer they could still be generally induced to burn with a little 87 octane encouragement.
Once I was out of grade school I turned my attention more to bonfires and eventually “redneck Christmas trees” – that being when one douses a 15-20 foot tall fir with three gallons of gas, at night of course, and throws a match. In its day I thought it was a truly beautiful sight. But those days are over.
I hope you’re wondering just why someone with such a background would now be enlisting himself in the ranks of those who may call yourselves “environmentalists,” and helping call attention to the need to reach a sustainable and “eco-friendly” lifestyle and economy. The answer is simple: You can’t reach your goals without me.
Sure, I used to toss aerosol cans into the trash fire just to see them explode and floor the accelerator of my 1966 Ford Galaxy up a mountain pass just to watch the gas needle sink at six miles to the gallon, but since the ’90s I’ve become more aware of the collective impacts of individual behavior. That’s why the “sustainable” and “eco-friendly” environmental movements need me and others like me to become active voices in the current dialogue on what to do about climate change and other environmental issues such as pollution, genetic modification of plants and livestock, and watershed and forest health.
Environmental purists need those with a little more petroleum flowing in their veins because we, the formerly conspicuous consumers and recreational destroyers, can speak the language of those who would resist changes to sustainability and maneuver within the “it’s always worked before, so don’t be alarmed” logic that is used by many who would like to see the status quo maintained.
Though climate change is being addressed on a global scale, we still have to engage in dialogue with some of the renewed movements that continue to claim that human-caused climate change is an exaggeration or even a myth. Two of these recent nationwide efforts are headed by The Heartland Institute (at globalwarmingheartland.org), founded in 1986, and The Science and Public Policy Institute (at scienceandpublicpolicy.org), founded in 1994, which argue that climate change is “not a crisis” and “evidently a natural process,” respectively.
The challenge to convince the mass of people and their governments and businesses that their individual actions and choice of what they buy and eat, and how they travel, commute and recreate actually impact Earth’s climate. Organizations like The Heartland Institute and SPPI currently have the advantage over environmental conservation organizations because the former offer a utopia of stasis and continued convenience without responsibility for repercussions, while the latter too often come across as offering only restrictions and economic hardship.
Because the debate has been framed in terms of environmental concerns and conservation being equated with these concepts, it is up to those of us who are familiar with establishment rhetoric to rephrase key terms in this dialogue so that concepts such as environmental and economic sustainability are embraced across class lines and not resisted on the basis of what often comes down to class identities.
We have to speak plain language and present unpretentious logic so that those of us, like me, who would burn trees with gas for thrills and buy genetically modified and processed foods for convenience will seriously consider the non-destructive and local alternatives.
There are many different ways in which students, faculty and staff at the University are channeling energy into these endeavors. Over the following weeks I will examine several of them, including the Cascade Climate Network, the University’s Environmental Issues Committee, the Environmental and Natural Resource Law Program, the Environmental Studies Program, sustainability efforts at University Housing, the Campus Recycling Program, and Eugene ’08.
My angle will be one to question if these efforts themselves can be sustainable and effective, keeping in mind not only the overwhelming economic dependence upon fossil fuels to meet our basic needs of food and shelter, but also the strong influence of organizations such as Monsanto and Weyerhaeuser, who not only use genetic modification to feed and house us more conveniently and cheaply, but also help fund our public institutions, such as the Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative at Oregon State University.
I welcome your comments and critiques and look forward to the dialogue.
[email protected]