If Earth Day really mattered, no one would ever consider putting bounties on coyotes. We would compete with them, fair and square, for the food and space we need. Sometimes we would win and sometimes coyotes would win. Killing off your competition would be taboo, the ultimate offence against fair play.
If Earth Day really mattered, Starbucks wouldn’t mark the occasion with free hot beverages made from delicious beans imported from 5,000 miles away. Nor would any corporation have the power to choke out local businesses with superior branding and occasional predatory pricing. We’d probably celebrate the day with homebrew and a feast of things we grew or gathered or hunted ourselves.
At the very least Starbucks would have the good sense to close for the day and send its people out to plant trees.
But if Earth Day really mattered, environmental groups (and Starbucks employees) could take the day off, instead of using the occasion as a desperate ploy to snatch a wee taste of scant media attention, begging toonies off guilt-ridden yuppies who saved a bundle on free Starbucks. The media would already be awash with serious, in-depth discussion of climate chaos and what communities can do about it. No time would be wasted on the few corporate-sponsored climate change deniers because the threat is too grave, too imminent and too real. And the opportunities—to regain community and human connections to all other living communities—are too important to miss.
If Earth Day really mattered it would be, as the cliche goes, every day. Environmental groups would be out of business because everyone would already be obsessed with how to make a more just, healthy, sustainable world. Discussions about the pros and cons of organic food or local food would be obsolete. Such compromises would be unnecessary in a world where Earth Day really mattered. We’d appreciate real (as opposed to factory) farmers and fairly compensate their work as our providers and stewards of the land, or we’d participate and share in that work ourselves.
If Earth Day really mattered, a one-off bunch of drop-in-the-bucket publicity stunts wouldn’t be necessary. We wouldn’t need a special day to get politicians to plant a couple of trees and say a few token words about sustainability. We’d demand better from them or boot their corrupt materialist arses out of our government buildings.
If Earth Day really mattered, it would be a celebration, not a fundraiser. It wouldn’t be about education, either. It would be a celebration of humanity’s small but important place in what is potentially the universe’s most intricate, complex and ingenious system of life. It would be about our connections to bigger things than us. All the suits would be right there picking berries, juggling fire or singing “Good Planets are Hard to Find” on their dusty acoustic guitars.
But, of course, that’s not the world we live in. We live in a hyper-consumerist ultra-competitive, unrestrained capitalist system. We live in a world where he who sheds his conscience, perhaps even incorporates in order to legally separate from his conscience, is the winner. And those without the wherewithal to conduct this psycho-surgery are the hands-out whiners. We live in a world where most don’t know that cooperation is as fundamental to evolution as competition. We have forgotten that we are not alone. We are connected by the very act of living, and we depend on that connection to other living things, in order to keep living.
And so, we need Earth Day to salve what consciences we have left, to maintain the illusion that we are progressing, and that all these choices we’ve made are actually rational. That it is rational for environmental groups to compete for miniscule grants while Ottawa gives Canadian banks $75 billion as a reward for fucking people over. That it is rational for the depletion of natural resources to be recorded as positive economic growth. That bounties on coyotes are a rational response to our unending sprawl, which has infringed ever-further onto coyote territory.
I know people find that idea crazy, that coyotes could have territory. But people wouldn’t find that crazy at all in a world where Earth Day really mattered.
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2010.
You’re right Chris, Earth Day has lost it’s focus. Now it’s about celebrities and corporations doing a one-off focus, trying to capitalize on that “salve” effect: making people feel good about themselves for doing that one good deed during Earth Day. Kinda like turning your lights off for an hour during Earth Hour. Nice gesture, but how about doing something a little more serious, like walking to work or taking public transit to work, instead of your truck?
Where I disagree with you is that our two systems, economic and environmental, can live together. We live in a consumerist society, but I argue it’s our nature to be consumers. We like shiny things, much like a Magpie. I’ll admit that this unfettered consumption isn’t entirely right, but we simply can’t shut it off either. So, we need to debate the benefits of organic vs. factory farmed because of that, despite us already knowing the answer. People need to be eased into a change, not forced. If they’re forced, they resist further, and then they withdraw. So, in a way, the Earth Day we have now is the Earth Day we need, because it might reach that one person who will be able to see through the agendas and see what the message is about, and effect that fundamental change in the organizations that preach these extreme changes, that make society withdraw.
How we can make that change by ourselves though, is by a slow introduction, and a slow return perhaps to a more modest lifestyle. One that incorporates the best of both worlds. Then we wouldn’t need Earth Day at all, because it would be a non-event.
thanks for the use of the F Word it really made my day !
“Psycho surgery” is spot on! Well spoken, Chris. This piece has the elegaic quality of George Grant’s Lament for a Nation. In our case, a planet.
Great message, but what’s your thing with Starbucks? Something everyone seems to overlook is the real problem is there are waaaaaaay to many people on this planet, as long as human population doubles every few years, all these things are only buy time. Birth control, restricting family size is ultimately the ONLY way that will save the planet.
We are a long way from the corporate and the people interests co-existing in harmony but we have also come a long way already. Environmental issues are actually being discussed seriously for whatever reasons in the boardrooms of our world instead of being laughed out of the meeting as they once were. Environmentalists must keep the pressure on and know that progress is being made one Earth day at a time.
How about doing something locally. When I lived in a different city, everyone was encouraged to put on some gloves and grab a bag and clean up garbage on the street, in their parks, or back lanes. Many people did and it made a difference. It even makes people think twice about littering. Look around, this city is covered in litter. Just do something to help.
How about doing something locally. When I lived in a different city, everyone was encouraged to put on some gloves and grab a bag and clean up garbage on the street, in their parks, or back lanes. Many people did and it made a difference. It even makes people think twice about littering. Look around, this city is covered in litter. Just do something to help.
Actually Meow64, our population will shrink, especially considering how the the baby boomers are slowly dying off. India is really the only concern in terms of geometric population growth, but even then, their average family size has decreased especially in rural areas, and China already has tight population controls.
Population is not the end all be all of the environmental equation, nor is it a even half of it.
“At the very least Starbucks would have the good sense to close for the day and send its people out to plant trees.”
And here we have it, the Khmer Rouge School of Environmentalism. I hear that Pol Pot was big on composting, too. So was Slobodan Milosevic. When are you Coasties going to learn that strident is not a synonym for credible. Or do you honestly believe that your readership consists solely of aging hippies, Poli-Sci 101 students, panhandlers and spoiled brat anarchists . Excuse the redundancies.
Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, spoke at the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change a few days ago, and concisely and soberly laid out the situation we are now facing:
“We are here because in Copenhagen the so-called developed countries failed in their obligation to provide substantial commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. We have two paths: either Pachamama or death. We have two paths: either capitalism dies or Mother Earth dies. Either capitalism lives or Mother Earth lives. Of course, brothers and sisters, we are here for life, for humanity and for the rights of Mother Earth. Long live the rights of Mother Earth! Death to capitalism!”
Note: Pachamama is the Mother Earth of the indigenous peoples of the Andes
Environmentalist Death Squads , now? In keeping with another Latin American tradition. LMFAO.
Also in keeping with another fine South American tradition, a South American leader on the take from a drug lord.
there is no fairness in nature twit.you either win or you don’t.nature made us the way we are.just like other creatures we use our strengths to secure our success.just as a lion does it kills all competitors.plants such as weeds do the same thing.get into reality and out of your smoked filled leftwing bullshit.the world is not a disney movie.its brutal.
lions don’t kill all competitors, they kill when they’re hungry or feel threatened
we kill all competitors
theres only one weed on this earth that can choke out every other plant on this earth
us
the world isn’t a disney movie, and its attitudes like that that keep it brutal
we are the only creature on this planet that uses our strengths to secure our success in a way that is slowly.. sorry make that quickly, destroying every other species of plant and animal on this planet
get into reality and do something, make an effort, we’re past the point of fixing this, but we can do a lot more to keep things from getting worse at the rate that they are
the world dosent have to be brutal
wrong antijust they kill all competing predators they also kill all infant children when they take over a new tribe.where the hell did you learn that info.
i also get a kick out of you so called environmentalist.everything you stand for is agianst the natural order.it clearly shows how deep your knnowledge is.
agian antijust,look at the male lions behaviour when they come across a cheetah leopards hyneas and other lions it is pure hostility.not the hippy kind of negotiation it is pure aggressive behaviour death to their competers.as we should be following more closely.
it is attitudes like mine that keep we minded fools like yourself to exist.in your well protected fail proof society that is the west.and the ignorance you people show from why that is.so antiitjust stop being stupid.
antitjust you are one ill informed human being a tribute to western society
The cruel irony of using lions as an example is that they are at risk of extinction because of humans. What animal will be used to justify ignorance when lions are gone?
“The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a possibly irreversible population decline of thirty to fifty percent over the past two decades in its African range. Lion populations are untenable outside of designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern.”
we follow the same rules all species on this earth follow.we are not ignorant.those who believe that they are above natures programming are ignorant,the same who have no idea of the natural order or respect its rules.whining about bullshit idealogies and what ifs that have no bases in reality.to quote.if people didn’t think like you’blah blah blah.the more reasonable response is if people didn’t listen to such stupid ass comments.what if questions. fucking idiots talk like that.
also go read some history and you may gain some insight on our behaviuor.we not only destroy other life we do the same to ourselves.chimpanzies do the same.they conduct military type raids in opposing camps.its called population control.see nature smart ,since man no longer has any natural predators, nature made sure we turned on ourselves,which you idiots protest at every oppurtinity
keep in mind that we do not need lions to survive or most creatures that exist on this earth.and there will be a time in human history when we will no longer need to depend on any other living creature to survive.
what are we suppose to do chris to make things fair to such an iferrior creature.get down on all 4’s.what should a lion do when it comes across a cheetah chris.tell me please.i may be able to make a walt disney movie out of it.
you do not honestly stand by your first paragraph in your article.please tell me you don’t.could not even read farther then that paragraph.i hope your are not that retarded to actually thinnk that paragraph is real.if that is what environmental movement has for intelligence my fuck what a joke.you people will never get anywhere.tell me you do nolt actually stand by that paragraph then i wilkl read the second paragraph.fuck you are funny.seriously you made me laugh
chris please respond and defend your adoloscent position.i never watched bambi but a lot of people have and need a explanation that is real
Interesting article. I am an environmentalist and I believe bringing the problems human interests can create for the living planet to everybody’s attention is important. Especially with children, since they will eventually become the stewards of the planet.
However, I do not believe capitalism and environmentism are mutually exclusive, they’ve traditionally been in separate camps with a major mistrust for each other but with the advent of green technology, I think there is common ground and reason for optimism.
My problem is with those who refuse to think there is a problem. These people who think the world is infinite, so we can continue to breed uncontrollably and exploit every resource no matter what the ecological cost. The easier thing for them to do is deny, deny, deny. In the seventies, there was a howl and cry about acid rain and the expensive measures to curb it. “It wasn’t happening”, “It’s pseudo-science” was the response despite the evidence of thousands of lakes with a high PH plus the evident impact on trees across the country. It was proven and we’re still recovering.
In the eighties, it was chloroflurocarbons from aerosol sprays thinning the ozone. Same kind of response. With the discovery of large holes in the ozone over both the Arctic and Antarctic, the science was accepted if reluctantly.
Now. Climate change. The deniers are at it again. “It’s a conspiracy to promote green industry” Al Gore, David Suzuki and climatologists are plotting to take over the world! I believe in the evidence is overwhelming for a carbon dioxide driven cause for climate change and ocean acidification. Even if it was a natural cycle, we’re not helping by spewing millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
I think we will (as a planet) rally to heal this situation because it is in our best interest and we will be forced.
“If Earth Day really mattered, Starbucks wouldn’t mark the occasion with free hot beverages made from delicious beans imported from 5,000 miles away. “
Maybe it’s just me but I find that the locally grown coffee beans taste A HELLUVA LOT LIKE CORN.
(Thank you Derek Edwards)
There has been a bounty of coyotes for a number of years!
It’s just that the amount of the bounty increased this year from $13 to $20.