The enduring difficulties of 2020 and the year of a virus that stopped the world gave many one sliver of a silver lining. The forced lack of human movement and daily business caused lack of the mega billions of dollars of petroleum products used daily in transportation by air, land and sea had stopped. And within weeks, there were reports of improved air quality from the lack of pollution from transportation modes. Researchers said estimated global carbon emissions dropped by 2.4 Billion Metric Tons, or, 7%, according to researchers at the Global Carbon Project in December of 2020. Emissions from air traffic was down 40% and from industrial complexes in some countries, a full 30%! (source: Global carbon emissions down by record 7% in 2020 | News | DW | 11.12.2020) All simply by humans being grounded, for their own safety, from any work or play in most countries.
Today's most visible voice on climate change is Greta Thunberg. As a poised young adult now, she has repeatedly stated the obvious of how humans are destroying the planet to a completely unsustainable end and how the world is not doing enough to keep the critical temperature markers of the Paris Accord as advised by the top scientists in the world. But it is important to note it did not start there.
Often looking at old films and TV commercials on You Tube, I have come across the teary eyed American Native Chief from a 1970s commercial asking the modern Americans 'please do not litter'. And since then, the many decades of Green Peace protestors placing their lives at risk in front of large whaling ships, arguing with poachers who have bloodied baby seals hanging off their backs, or pictures of people who have died trying to save countless other endangered species. Then there were smog reports, increasing instances of water pollution like in Flint, MI, unanswered rising cases of childhood asthma, bees disappearing, and entire countries suffering from endless drought and famine. With each passing decade of expanding global video communications, there has been someone to voice concerns of the changes in natural habitats and climates from local indigenous people to farmers, to scientists like Jane Goodall, and leaders of nations. And the amount donated to the cause to reduce any act interrupting sustainability worldwide has significantly increased. There have been some small changes, sure, as in, less numbers of certain animals killed or poached, some previously over polluted waters are now cleaner and able to be swam or fished in (eg: Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay select areas), and more wetlands preservation or general wild areas. Recycling has now become a multi-billion dollar industry, where before the 1990s, it was rare to recycle in most parts of the USA. A decade previous to recycling, the closest would be children saving soda cans and bottles to get the return change to make money, or newspapers being used as insulation in housing or for wrapping delicate porcelain before bubble wrap (plastic!) was common.
But here in is the hidden layers and wall. The amount donated increased, but the distance of many humans to time spend in real, unpolished and trimmed nature, decreased. Humans in civilized nations were conned into believing that a manicured lawn and landscaped picturesque yard without bothersome nuisances like animals and animal dung -- plus the white picket fence and the designer car and showcase housing --- was the ideal like. And to achieve this, work, education by travel, more work, attaining money or value, was the paramount vision. The Hollywood picture of the rich or famous, with extravagance, was sold to the masses all over the world. No one discussed that to achieve this, one had to spend less time in nature, less time preparing foods from scratch, and spend more on 'convenience' items to save time. The marketing and sales people had done their jobs, they had sold the fantasy of glamour, and the absolute need to desire a piece of the glamour, to everyone ambitious enough to dream of the 'ideal' life they were sold. The sad part, this 'ideal' image was one born out of the suits of D.C. and the skyscrapers of Manhattan or the insurers from London and the runways of Paris and Milan. The idea of being serviced, not having to touch the soil, not having to pick or peel your own vegetables and appearing to be in such a sanitary and spotlessly clean picture of health and wealth, riding in the best of cars, first class and a giant private abode befitting royalty. Children from Cusco to New Delhi, Omsk to Tehran who had any television exposure, were shown these pictures as the ones of ultimate wealth and power and influence, whether it was designated as evil or blessed. But none were ever shown the price, not even those born into the lap of the luxurious lives.
What do I mean by this? Interestingly, all of the anti-sustainability is first marked by the need for capitalism to define success by 'winning' the most amount of dollars from the most customers at preferably, premium pricing. So marketing is designed to create 'habits' to create addicts out of anyone, so an item will be sold over and over. Before, or about the 1960s, personally, I do feel the throw away pieces of items bought were more limited, and quality and durability was more valued. It seemed families had heirloom furniture and pieces bought for newly married couples were meant to last -- even if from a Sears & Roebuck catalogue. It seemed a prideful thing-- to have items that were 'living' with the family for years. However, after Americans grew accustomed to increasing wealth states and especially after the advent of pop culture that included McDonald's and carefree summer hitch hiking days, it seemed the companies learned something interesting. That carefree attitude did not have means for people to carry around a lot of valuables or material goods that were burdensome like in pioneer days. It meant things needed to be disposable and portable. Clothes had to be made to not be so costly as to be a great loss and food had to be served in items that could be quickly disposed of, to keep the 'pristine clean' picture in tact. And this meant customers would be buying and using and throwing away again and again, meaning more production and more dollars. And, if entire generations could be sold on this idea....
The problem is that as Americans and western culture expanded into a motility and dual parent income culture with less desires to do the lowly chores of cleaning, farming, harvesting, tending to animals, etc, so also did entire generations become removed of the idea of the cycles of nature and how physical things are both permanent and impermanent but nature finds a way to give life to things over and over. Instead, we now have millions of 'advanced' civilization people for over 2 generations, who are accustomed to less menial labor and less time to care for themselves, let alone understand the impact of using single use plastics, food waste, water waste or their contribution to air pollution. (and I do not count myself a saint, I have broken nature's creed many times myself in the need of making an income and having to grab a quick lunch through a drive through = air pollution, waste, junk food, plastics, all in one!)
I recently spent time with an octogenarian, who was once raised half farm, and of course, during multiple wars, where she had once learned the values of conservation of items because there were rations and scarce supplies. But when cooking with her, simple things, like asparagus--- where I prefer to only cut about 1/2" to 1" or the most dry/weedy ends off, she insisted to do like her mother, cut off at the nearest joint, which eliminated over 2 to 3" per each stalk. In each break I am thinking to myself, if we were on a farm with chickens and pigs, this is great- they would get the scraps and the life cycle would be in continuous flow by feeding those tips. But this night, those tips were sent down a garbage disposal in the sink -- forever wasted. Then she showed me her pride and morning joy of the kitchen-- a Keurig machine. She loves the chai tea in the cups. I have also had a Keurig for over a decade, but, when they made the 'make your own' coffee filter/screen inserts almost a decade ago, I quickly purchased to make my own after discovering the plastics of the Keurig cups are not recyclable. In fact, in 2019, Green Mountain company (Keurig manufacturer), attempted to make recycle Keurig cups but not so successfully, because there still issues. At one point, the original cups were estimated to fill at least landfills wrapping world over at least 10Xs just from Americans using those (and yes, I am guilty of that then also). But only about 75% of the new pods are convertible to compost-- and ONLY if you collect and return enough to the address on the box through their partnerships, in order to recycle those cups. (The curious, environmental case of the Keurig K-Cups (or what to do with them) – San Gabriel Valley Tribune (sgvtribune.com))
Getting back to my octogenarian friend- well, she got used to the luxury of the Keurig. So when mentioning the reusable screen-- oh no, that is too much trouble. Would she collect the pods after use? Oh no, that is too much trouble. Could I cut the asparagus ends please?? Oh no- she wanted to do it just like her mother. If there was a vegetable in the salad she didn't like, if I didn't eat it, it would be thrown out. And if anything couldn't be frozen, well, if it wasn't eaten, it was thrown out. Maybe some old bread went to squirrels, but most neighborhoods do not allow feeding wildlife- so the answer? Thrown out. (But to her credit, she works a lot with feeding homeless and helping others, these are just unconscious habits of hers).
She, like many I know, often know they might have a harmful habit, and brush it off as "well I am only one person so what harm is it if I do it? I donate to plenty of causes and don't use a lot of anything else and conserve a lot".
Here is the problem. The big money-making marketing companies of wall-street and international investment firms do not invest in products that only sell a few here and there. They only invest in products that sell by the millions per month, if possible. And each person that says I am only one who buys these very harmful items like individual bottles of water and individual snack packs (yes, of course I also cannot escape having to buy single serve especially in covid era) - is helping to unload millions of units of each of these items. And with each item, millions of units of convenient 'packaging' material that has plastic, resin layers, paper layers and maybe even metal layers, with an extreme nice looking bright marketing advertisement label. And each single item has added to millions in carbon units, landfills, displacement of natural resources used to make those materials, severely harmful chemical toxins released into the air to make those items and unknown damages for years to come to the planet.
But if the octogenarian whose earlier years never included the Keurig or a garbage disposal cannot live without, how does anyone expect younger generations, who never knew there was a world without Mr. Coffee and Keurig machines, Starbucks and McDonalds, or single serve 'everything', to adapt to the needs of an aging planet? They are also simultaneously being told to invest into funds that invest into the single serve and convenience manufacturers to make money for their own futures!!
Meanwhile, the planet desperately wonders why humans, who understands so much of the science of needing minerals and carbon for our structures to be strong and healthy, keep robbing Her of Her minerals and carbon, so she cannot feed her plants and swell her clean waters like she once could. She doesn't know what the stock market or marketing and ads are. She only knows life and death and the cycles of life and death. She knows the basic foundations of physical elements can slowly over time, be reformed and brought back into new life, not to be pressed, chemically enhanced and restructured to make a higher profit margin. Her rhythm does not match the one of the airports and stock market rush hours; hers will be only of severe dry seasons, severe rainy seasons, days with light and days without.
May we hope Her message is strong enough to influence the next few decades of humans, so we can one day find a common rhythm that will synchronize human desires with natural needs.
