I was looking at this photo of Chris and I on our honeymoon. First of all, man have I aged in 8 years - motherhood does that to you. Things were so carefree and loose back then. Our worries were few and we had fun although in retrospect, we probably should have had even more fun.
But now everything feels heavy. On my shoulders…it is always heavy. The weight of my job and the weight of the world. We are in a media and information age, so at any moment, one can discover what is happening in every corner of the world. I sit in a restaurant ordering whatever I want and know that there is a man in Haiti feasting on a patty made of mud, oil and sugar trying to quiet his starving belly.
I sit here in a country that has contributed the most pollution to the world. We are a country of 300 million. India has a population of 1.2 bililion, 4 times our size. China is a country of 1.3 billion - also 4 times our size. The cities in China are covered with smog daily- much worse that you would find in LA. They are putting 25,000 cars on the road every day; 9 million a year. Bike lanes, what used to be the main transportation for the country, are a thing of the past. They are mining coal at such a staggering rate that mines are put together quickly and can be rather unsafe. They are undergoing an industrial revolution similar to ours circa 1900s - it is a mix of new and old technologies and squat toilets. It took us a century to get a small handle on our pollution - and China is just getting started.
This is not a time for environmental considerations, they are just trying to keep up with the demand of the people. Think of the pollution our country has managed to create. Now think of TWO countries doing the same thing. I can’t find the source, but I thought it was the Department of Energy predicted that our emissions will actually increase by 51% and I don’t have the stretch of time for that. The point being that things are not going to get better for the environment, if at all. And as far as I am concerned, the dominoes are falling and now it is only a matter of time before we see the ramifications of the carelessness of our actions. Some climatologists has issued a report saying we have 10 years to drastically change the ways of our world. And I laugh - no one cares. No one understands just what this will mean.
What people don’t get is that China’s pollution will not remain in China - that air pollution and water pollution will travel. It is like when the fires of Mexico blanket Austin in a haze for a week. Think how we might feel if China’s air pollution came over here and created daily smog in our cities. That is why we have to care - we will all be affected. Maybe it is karma - we put so much crap into the environment that maybe we get hit with results of someone else’s polluting.
There is a children’s book called Barbapapa written in the 70s. The people didn’t take care of their environment. Things get so bad that everyone is walking around wearing gas masks. The animals all leave to go to another planet. The people miss the animals and decide to clean up there world and find better ways to do things. Things get better and the Earth is once again green. The animals observe this from a telescope and return to the planet to live in harmony with the people. I hope that the ending is that happy for us, but I don’t see how you can cool the Earth back down. I really think that we are at a point where it is about adapting to what will be and evolution. I fear we will have famine and war over resources. The environmental concerns will take a back seat and we will drill everywhere we can for oil because those with resources win.
It frustrates me because how can we all sit here and do nothing. How can I sit here with all the knowledge of things going on and think it is so important to organize my closet? I get an inkling of how the folks who witnessed the genocides in Uganda and Rawanda must have felt. People were dying left and right, woman were being raped, families ravaged and the world just watched.
Another thing that bugs me is we had two natural disasters happen recently in China and Myanmar. Immediately there was aid flowing to both places to help in the wake of the crisis. I am in no way against that help. But it is so odd to me that all this food is rushed to the victims of these disasters and yet there are people all over the world starving every day. Again, how can a global community just let part of its community starve?
I know it is more complex - there are governments that get in the way and bear a great deal of responsibility. We can’t remove every shady government and have Iraqs and Afghanistans all over the world. And we can’t do much if governments squander aid or exploit their country’s precious resources. But somehow, there must be a way to bring these countries into the global economy and make it worth their while to play it straight.
We are really a global community now. And we have to work as a global community. It is so strange that at a time we are all so close - much of the solution to our resource/oil/energy crisis is to keep it local. Why ship wood from West Virginia to China to be made into furniture and then back to West Virginia? Why buy food from Argentina when I could buy what was grown here? That is a lot of energy to transport that food.
Another thing folks can do that would help immensely is to stop consuming so much. If there wasn’t a demand, there wouldn’t be a supply. Our country is the biggest market for so many goods. Do we REALLY need all that stuff? Our dollar speaks volumes and the more consciously we shop, the more we make our preferences clear.
I am so nervous about the world and what it is going to be for my kids. And I realize there is no where to go, we are stuck on this planet. I can’t escape. All I can do it be the best steward of the planet I can and live consciously and teach my kids to do the same.
So much of this has been churning around in my head. I told a friend that it is on a rotisserie in my head while I figure out what to do with it. What is next for me? The pieces are scattered in my head: the pull to lead something, the pull to run a non-profit, the extreme pull to the environment, the pull to service, the pull to be a muse, to motivate, the pull to make change. But how?
My friend Wendy said I needed to ask a good “How” question. A quality question will yield a quality answer. But for now life feels heavy. I have no problem functioning day to day and in fact just made some changes to our seasonal table that I can’t wait to show you…and cleaned out a closet. But still, all those thoughts, images, news stories are there stewing in the crock pot of my head. How can we sit here? Are we all really plugged into the matrix? Focus on the 4th of July sales…you need patio furniture, you need summer toys, there is a buy one get one free shoe sale, you need to take care of those wrinkles, Botox is for everyone, more money, more money, more money…..
I just keep thinking if each person could do just one great something, that would equal 300 million amazing some things and we might see some change. We in this country yield way more power that we know, but we don’t use it. I look at my daughter singing “Ring Around the Rosy” - she is a bird flying - she is as light as a feather not weighted down with the problems of the world. I see the joy in her face. All children should know this joy - all children should be able to experience that bliss.
*sigh* The kids are home and I have to wrap this up. So I will stuff all these convoluted thoughts back into my head. It all just really bums me out and I fear for my children and the world they will experience and how different it may be from mine. Their life journey may end up being much tougher than my generation. They may end up having more in common with my grandparents than I did. Granted, I myself still have, hopefully, 40 years left here, so who knows what I will end up seeing….
There isn’t an easy answer to any of this stuff and much of it is what it is. I guess in the end it gets back to that sphere of control - worry about what I can control and let go of the rest. That and find a quality “how” question.
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