The human condition of consumption has become malignant. That said, we offset the reality of our current path with the comforting ideas of “we’re trying to make things better” and “every little bit helps.” It is rather like being on a plane spiraling towards earth, all the while enjoying the in-flight showing of “Wall-E.” The green movement, which fosters the likes of recycling and eco-friendly products, has become yet another shoulder for humanity to hang its guilty head upon. We have been unable to gain any real, tangible traction with the green movement because we are fighting our own system, our own tendencies. We consume and exist in a system that fosters consumption. In order to make any significant changes to improve our situation, we must cast aside the idyllic notion that we can save the planet by becoming good caretakers and embrace our needs for immediate fulfilment. We must create a system that rewards our immediate survival (not the future generations as is so often referenced) and provides consequences if we act otherwise. The initial steps can be taken by focusing on the other two R’s in the green movement’s call to action, reduce and reuse.
The world economy is in debt. Over 150 countries each carry over a billion dollars of debt. The smallest countries in the group being Maldives, Eritrea, and Belarus. In 2011, the Maldives population was under 400,000 (that’s roughly the same population as St. Louis). The point is… everyone is in debt. Our spending habits reflect an inability to manage resources effectively. In short we’ve all spent more money than we actually have. That is a terrifying notion when applied to water which we use in the same manner. “The average person in the developed world drinks a gallon of water each day but ‘eats’ another 800 gallons. And as Americans, our water consumption per capita is twice the world’s average.” It really makes that 55 gallon rain barrel seem inadequate. And the amount of people ‘leaving’ westernized civilization in order to lessen their ecological footprint are few and far between. It boils down to ease of access… my cats were fat, lazy, and generally unhealthy when I used to leave their food bowls filled all day. Now that I’ve been feeding them twice a day in measured portions, they’re healthy and active. I know of no predator that has easy access to a meal 24/7, yet that’s the environment we allow ourselves to believe we exist in (and yes, we’re definitely predators). Having water “surplus” does not secure any type of future, it simply means we can drink more now.
There are two floating trash piles in the central Pacific Ocean larger than Texas. “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of widely dispersed, broken-down plastic waste particles gathered into a large floating mass by slow moving tides. What is known for certain is that the marine debris in the North Pacific Gyre is 80% plastic and it’s mostly coming from land.” In 2003 Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, performed a study that found six times more plastic than plankton in the Central Pacific gyre (or Western Garbage Patch). He went back in 2008 and found a 46-to-1 ratio. That equates to about a 10 fold increase over a ten year span. Moore has referred to that section of ocean as a “plastic soup.” During 2009’s International Coastal Cleanup, the Ocean Conservancy found that plastic bags were the second most common kind of waste found, at 1 out of ten items picked up and tallied. The obvious point here is that we produce plastic bags with the idea that they are better for the environment because they can be recycled… but we’re not following through. Plastic is absolutely horrible for the environment when it ends up in anywhere but a recycling plant.
Kamilo Beach in Hawaii is considered a prime example of what beaches “of the future” will look like. Its “sand” is now finely ground bits of plastic. This is the revisionist future we paint for ourselves brought on by the “we can fix it tomorrow” attitude. But by focusing on all our potential for the future, we’re ignoring the destruction that is already happening.
Less than one percent of plastic bags are recycled each year. Recycling one ton of plastic bags costs $4,000. The recycled product can be sold for $32. And so it becomes quite obvious that humans simply are not recycling their products (especially if it doesn’t pay). Actually, they are casting aside their used goods (including electronics) in the most convenient way possible. If there’s a trash can nearby, it goes in there, if not, just into the street. About 304 million electronics were disposed of from US households in 2005. Two-thirds of them still worked. But there’s hope, right? If we ALL recycled EVERYTHING, then we could make a difference, right? Wrong. The simple fact is that we are constantly consuming even more than the staggering amount we discard. Recycling simply makes us feel better about consuming more. In 1960, each person in the US only generated 2.68 pounds of waste. In 1970, the figure was 3.25. In 2000, the average American generated 4.65 lbs of waste per day. So, in order to just equal our trash output from 1960, we must recycle 42% of our waste. To put it another way, even if we recycled 100% of our waste since the 1960’s, we would still have more than doubled our consumption of raw materials by the year 2000. Unfortunately, recycling simply cannot produce more product.
Money is the true green behind the green movement. Under our current world economy, the bottom line is the main influencing factor in most “earth-conscious” decisions made by government or businesses. The waste-management system in the United States was in many ways a polluter sponsored initiative that allowed corporations to expand their productive capacity without fixing fundamental flaws in their packaging technology. Big business lobbied for curbside recycling in order to ensure their products were as appealing as possible to the general public. The alternative was packaging deposits (paid at point of sale by the consumer), which are refunded upon recycling that material. Incidentally, this method has proved to be much more effective (Michigan’s return rate for bottles is 97%), but is only currently used in 11 states. This demonstrates our need for immediate feedback in order to buy in to a process. Mail-in-rebates are a perfect example. They are used primarily because of the number of consumers who do not take advantage of the rebate. Estimates for successfully cashing the rebate check rarely exceed more than 60%, and can be as low as 2%. In 1970, three scientists performed an experiment to demonstrate the effects of delayed gratification. 50 children were offered a piece of candy immediately or two pieces of candy if they waited for 15 minutes. 40 of the children ate the candy without waiting the full 15 minutes. One way or another, if we don’t receive instant gratification or consequences, we simply tend to ignore that practice.
We have all become merchants. Today, a person’s livelihood is based on another person’s need to buy. Under that system, we are stuck funneling money to the upper echelon of society where the only focus is getting more money. The obvious danger of that system is that my ability to feed myself is based on your inability to feed yourself. It’s as if we are all painters unable to paint our own house. How much sense does that make? The general concern with moving away from this model is that once a category of people can’t (or won’t) buy, the class that depends on those purchases won’t be able to eat. We must move away from this system in order to prevent collapse. Activists regularly attack big business (Walmart, Nestle, Microsoft) for its impact on the ecosystem and humanity. What this very limited stance fails to see is that the world economy is the mother of all capitalist corporations. Those activists might as well be throwing a pebble at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. What we really need to do is paint the whole thing another color, along with our thinking. If all of the ‘ground’ level merchants worked to be self-sufficient, that would only leave one class with a shattered world view (the upper class). But they are not excluded from working within the confines of the new system, they have a choice. They can exist as the rest of us do, or they can cling to a failing system and attempt to eat and drink their money.
Economists are not ecologists for a reason. David Suzuki (activist/geneticist) states “Economics is a form of brain damage. Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world it is destructive.” He states economics “might as well be on Mars” because it considers the source of the goods as “externalities.” It does not take into account the need to replenish trees, water, or even organisms. With our current focus on money as the source for food and water, we are aligning our thinking with that system so much that we have forgotten the importance of life’s necessities. Do you know how much money you have on you, or available to you? Why? Because it matters. Do you know how much clean water you have available to you? Probably not. Does that not matter? That thought process is symptomatic of our society as a whole. We’re willing to fund systems and programs that have the heart-warming appeal of recycling, while allowing our infrastructure to crumble beneath us. That infrastructure (of the United States) is evaluated and graded every four years. Engineering News states “the report card, released on March 19, 2013 in a digital format, shows that the state of infrastructure in six sectors–including drinking water, wastewater, solid waste, roads, bridges and rail–improved slightly. Those improvements brought the overall grade to a D+, up from a D four years ago. Even with the modest progress we’ve made in the past four years, there remains a significant–some would say staggering–$1.6-trillion gap between the needed investment level and the proposed funding.” In 2009, the same report showed that leaking pipes lose an estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water a day. Really makes those low-flow showerheads seem a bit silly.
We’re choosing to see how things could be rather than recognize the true future that our present will create. We are constantly saying “we can make it better.” Unfortunately we’ve been saying that over and over and yet we have continued to regress (or at best, tread water). To me, that sounds very much like the definition of insanity: do the same thing over and over while expecting different results. We cannot improve the face of humanity through plastic surgery. We must embrace our inadequacies and our desires. Since we are so focused on instant reward, we must create a system that provides that reward for our own perpetual survival. Each of us must work to become more self sufficient. Minimizing your consumption is the only way to stem the tide of production. Obviously, you cannot stop driving your car, and I’ve clearly shown that every little bit doesn’t really do squat, so take care of yourself and your family. Become more than a merchant. Grow food for yourself, find a way to get water, prepare for the future in ways other than creating a college fund. Our infrastructure is failing, as is our economic system. Clinging to them will mean certain cataclysm. While you may not be able to alter humanity’s path, you can work to ensure your own. Become self-sustainable.
How can you help or hinder this process? Focus on rewarding yourself, not with a new purchase, but with a new experience. By spending less on goods, you can spend more on travel, fine dining, or perhaps a play. Simply enjoy your life, make it as fulfilling as you can, but don’t waste time with the delusion that you can recycle everything you purchase. We all have better things to do than to live a false life. We should realize that in our collective mind the Earth/nature is already dead, and act accordingly. Would you continue to attempt to harvest fruit from a dead tomato plant? No, you wouldn’t. You’d harvest lettuce, or plant some beans. Stephen Hawking (theoretical physicist) states “Our only chance of long term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.” Some, like Hawking think we’re incapable of change. Many think that we must change in order to ensure our survival. I ask, how can we survive without changing? I think the simplest answer is the one we’ve been avoiding all along… do what feels right, focus on yourself. Becoming a better person is the most fulfilling way to live one’s life, and that is not accomplished by buying the newest gadget. The choice is yours, be a consumer, or be a pioneer.
