9/13/2020 An unbearable cost
Sending love and good thoughts to all who are covered by a blanket of smoke, who have had to think about (or carry out) evacuation, who have been affected by the fires sweeping our beautiful west coast this week. And to those preparing for hurricanes, all while recovering from the last round of wind and water. We reach out and do what we can to help, if we are lucky enough to be in a position to do so.
I've been reading a book I picked up at an estate sale. Many of you will know of Wendell Berry, a poet and essayist who has studied and written about the human relationship with the natural world. In the collection "The Gift of Good Land" (North Point Press), his essays focus on agriculture and food production, in particular the disruption of our traditional stewardship of the land by mechanized, fossil-fuel driven "agribusiness."
Yesterday, as the smoke rolled in, I read this passage:
"[Fossil fuel] energy could be made available to empower such unprecedented social change because it was 'cheap.' But we were able to consider it 'cheap' only by a kind of moral simplicity: the assumption that we had a 'right' to as much of it as we could use. This was a 'right' made solely by might. Because fossil fuels, however abundant they once were, were nevertheless limited in quantity and not renewable, they obviously did not 'belong' to one generation more than another....
"That is the real foundation of our progress and our affluence. The reason that we are a rich nation is not that we have earned so much wealth - you cannot, by any honest means, earn or deserve so much. The reason is simply that we have learned, and become willing, to market and use up in our own time the birthright and livelihood of posterity." (p. 127, emphasis mine)
Barry wrote these words in an essay called "Energy in Agriculture," first published forty-one years ago, in 1979. It struck me, as I read, that the posterity he was writing about then is us: ourselves, our children, our grandchildren. We are experiencing the results of the environmental degradation, and associated climate change, created by the exploitation of fossil fuels, in the smoke above our heads.
I'm aware, painfully, that I write this message on equipment made possible by those same fossil fuels. What Barry asks of us is to consider all technologies, whether a new high-powered tractor or a new high-powered computer chip in their full context. They bring social, cultural, and environmental impacts as well as technological "progress."
"Impact" might be too pale and sterile a word. We are called, morally, ethically, and practically, to change our relationship with this beautiful planet that hosts us. Our survival, and that of our children and grandchildren, will be made more or less possible by the degree to which we decide, now, to let go of the notion that we have a "right" to use up the world's resources, because we have the technology to do so. Whatever you might think of a "Green New Deal" in its specifics, it is clear that the cost of doing nothing to change our trajectory is becoming unbearable.
We observe our community, state, and national leaders, watching for their ability and willingness to name our challenges, trust us with the facts, and call us to informed, effective action. If they cannot, or will not, we must step forward ourselves.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and may this week bring calm winds and cleansing rains wherever they are needed. I am grateful for your willingness to explore these ideas and experiences with me.
Liz