Thinky Thoughts today on environmentalism and the question of why. I know a few of my friends have asked me why I’m so passionate about the environment. What is it that makes protecting this natural world of ours so important to me. Is it the koalas or the kangaroos. Is it cute fuzzy animals. Is it because whales are beautiful to look at or because baby seals are so sweet.
No to all of that. At least, that’s not the real reason. Yes, whales are beautiful and majestic. Yes, baby seals are like balls of cotton wool with big, black, earnest eyes that make you want to pick them up and schmoosh them. (Side note: one of the most endearing images for me of sheer guts and compassion is of Paul Watson, the Captain of the Sea Shepherd, carrying a baby seal in his arms and running away from a massive seal-hunters ship coming up behind him. This man is now being hounded by the legal systems of three countries because our law has been shanghaied by the corporates. That’s justice for you.)
My first environmental act was when I was seven or eight years old. I read a story in my mum’s Woman’s Weekly magazine about sealing. They had photos in it of a seal that had been clubbed to death. To this day, I’m not sure how such an important article got in Woman’s Day but there it was. I was horrified. My eight year old brain couldn’t understand why anyone – anyone – would do this to a helpless creature for any reason. What possible reason could there be for this violence?
I cut the photos out and pasted them in a letter. I used big red arrows to point to the pointless violence visited on this poor creature and I sent it to then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser with the words ‘Why Prime Minster? How could you let this happen?’
I got a letter back. It was a standard form letter – we support the regulations and guidelines set by Canada – but to this day I wonder about the public servant who ripped open my letter and read it first. Did he or she feel something? Did it move them? Did they for a moment consider doing something different from what they did every day?
I’ll never know.
So why environment? Is it really about the seals?
No. It’s about us. Scientists haven’t entirely figured it out yet, but they’ve figured out enough to know that we need the environment for our survival. I’m not just talking about for food, air or water. I’m not talking about the economic rationalist justification for why would should care. That insidious paradigm that dictates we must whittle everything down to a dollar value so that we can understand its worth.
I’m talking about our spiritual wellbeing and our health. We still don’t fully understand this communally, but the violence we visit upon our natural home is violence we visit upon ourselves. Every time we commit an act of terror on a species or creature or another human being, that chips away at our collective soul. The natural world exists in a balance and we are part of that balance. Were all the trees to go, and big open-cut mines to take their place, we couldn’t last long ourselves after that. Not in any form most of us would care to live in.
To see the price we’re paying for the path we’re taking look around you – look at our indigenous people and the wisdom we’re ignoring, look at our native fauna and flora, look at our dilapidated rivers, look at our polluted skies, look at our acidifying oceans, our disappearing fish populations, our endangered wildlife, look at our bloodied and battered whales, look at our dead baby seals, look at our disappearing rainforests, look at the dismal, apocalyptic waste-land that is the Alberta Tar Sands. And don’t stop there. Look at our corrupt politicians, look at our broken political system, look at our culture ‘wars’ (yes, even here we must war with each other), look at our apathetic population (count me in that mix, because I could do more than I am), look at our cynicism, look at our societal obsession with beauty and passing, meaningless fads, look at our epidemic of depression, look at our suicide rates, look at our obsession with 'finding' happiness, look at our obsession with reality TV. (Christ! Look at that!)
Look at all of that and ask yourself – is it worth it? Did we get a good return on our investment for what we paid for with our priceless and irreplaceable treasures? Who’s profiting from this? And then ask yourself why we should allow individual profit to trump communal good. Does that really make any sense at all?
I don’t want to leave this on a sour note though, so I’ll go further. Because there is a further.
Look at the community groups that have sprung up all over the world to speak truth to power, look at the courage of the woman who’s been up a tree in Tasmania for months protesting – putting her life on hold for what she cares about, look at the scientists who are discovering new and renewable ways to power our lives, look at the technological advances we are making that promise a cleaner and better world. Look at our scientists and our healers, look at our children and their optimism and dreams, look at the Mars Rover, look at our artists. Look at the women and men out there creating, solving, caring about each other, working to save our trees, our lions, our elephants, our monkeys, our rivers, our tigers, our koalas, our Tasmanian devils, our poor, our needy, our sick and injured. Look at our doctors and nurses, look at our carers, look at our families. Look at the fact that for every selfish person there are ten of us who are not, look at what we’re capable of.
Look at what we’re capable of and ask yourself – why can’t we have the world that most of us want? What’s standing in our way? Is it them – those faceless men in power who have corrupted our system and each other? There’s less of them, more of us.
Look at our planet then turn and look at them, and ask yourself – as I am doing today – who will stand up to them if not us? Are we really going to let these bullies dictate what the rest of us have to deal with, pay for and put up with? Really? Bollocks.
Now one final thing – look at our favourite story heroes. The ones you always wanted to be. The Han Solos. The Luke Skywalkers. The Leias. The Frodos and Sams. The Aragorns and Gandalfs. Look at the Thors and the Iron Mans and the Xenas. Look at our Atreyus and our Harry Potters. It’s fiction... right?
But wait – we have things to defend and speak up for don’t we? Why couldn’t that be you and me?
Maybe the only thing that stands between the world we know we can create and the reality of creating it is you and me.
Just a thought.
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