Wherever I look today, new companies, Web sites, magazine features and television reports are focusing on eco-friendly everything. Be it alternative energy, hybrid vehicles, “offsetting your carbon imprint,” brand name organics, whatever, the strength of environmentalism is growing and I’m happy to see it. The country seems to have finally woken up to the crises we are facing; or, at least, the economy has.
I have a small problem with the motivations, though. It seems purely selfish to me, both individually and as a species. Individually, it has gone from being hip — hence all the celebrities driving Prius’s and having “eco-friendly weddings” and the whathaveya — to being profitable — hence all the start-ups trying to sell new gadgets related to this hipness.
As a species, the reason that we have suddenly woken up to the looming ecological threats seems to be purely self-preservation. While the movement had been accelerating before it, those levies breaking in New Orleans last September seem to have been the real watershed moment, no pun intended, of this new movement. As the United States watched the near-destruction of one of its great cities, we thought about our own homes destroyed, our own lives turned upside-down, and we decided it was time to start paying attention.
Ultimately, I don’t care how people discover their inner green, because today I feel like there’s at east some promise we’ll change the direction of our consumption before it’s too late. I’m glad people are paying attention and trying to do things to change our anti-Earth ways, but I can’t help feeling that it’s all kind of empty. If it wasn’t for the hipness or the self-preservation, nobody would give a damn.
What I feel is missing from all of it is a true love for the Earth. I think of a quote from Sigurd Olson:
“There can be no real, lasting land ethic without love.”
As I see more eco-Web sites and eco-blogs and eco-gadgets and eco-marketing popping up, I feel like we’re at risk of losing sight of some priorities, some sense of what is important and why.
Loving the Earth is important to me because this planet is amazing, because the creatures that live here with us are some sort of miracles, and because the sum of it all is more than I can comprehend.
Last spring, I attended a talk by Dave Foreman, who defined the term “eco-warrior,†and he stressed that things like the discovery that lynx are breeding in northern Minnesota for the first time in many years is important not because it would be cool to see a lynx someday, or because it represents some sort of success by the environmental movement, but “because they are just doing what lynx do.”
That type of love needs to be at the core of environmentalism for it to be an ethic, rather than merely a new-and-improved form of exploiting Mother Earth. It’s not too late to change anything, that’s for sure. The sphere is young and will grow. Already, I see signs here and there: articles about conservation and spirituality, a new green aesthetic that could stand on its own, a sincere feeling of higher purpose, and yes, the necessary collision of green and popular
culture.
There’s no sense in criticizing without trying to change it, and I’m still trying to figure out how I can be involved and effective. For now, I write about what I love and why I love it, but it’s not enough. Anyone want to figure out a way to do something more together?
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I think being present to the world–as we are when we are “in love”–and celebrating that love with others is the greatest thing we can do. If people, as you said, can come to love this place with its creatures and mountains, they will be less motivated by the consumptive culture we live in (I love the irony of new companies selling eco-gadgets when what we really need is less companies making any gadgets) and more motivated by their relationship.
Really nice, thought provoking piece.