The Big Kvetch

Perhaps it's the unusually rainy and cold merry month of May, but things are looking rather dreary.

Or perhaps it's just having read Bill McKibben's new book, Eaarth. It is, as all his books, wide-ranging, informative, written in his signature casual style and a fast read. But this one is particularly depressing. In it, he reprieves the theme from his End of Nature book, which is that we no longer live on the same earth as our ancestors did (hence the change of spelling from Earth to Eaarth); that we have so altered the way the world works, and have so stripped it of its natural resources and healing capacity that only a wholesale, permanent change in our attitude and behavior will see us through.

We have to give up our mantra of relentless growth. We have to return to local economies, healthy agriculture, earth-friendly productivity and old-fashioned neighborliness. We have to eat better, tending to how our diet affects the planet and not just our bodies. We have to consume less, swap out our persistent habit of travel and replace it with virtual visits, meetings and encounters on the internet. Distance will be conquered, or at least mitigated, by telecommunications.

He is not wrong. And he gives compelling examples of how all this is already emerging, and that we need to work harder to bring it to scale, to make it a part of our new culture, our new Eaarth. But despite his smiling photo on the back flap of the book, his relentless crusade, and his personal optimism amid his deep concern (I met him once this past year when he spoke in Baltimore - he is irresistibly hopeful), this book was depressing. Even its cover is depressing: it is a huge, bloated, fat X that is swallowing up the earth.

Or perhaps it is the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act that was unveiled yesterday, which is as sausage-y and schizophrenic a piece of legislation as one can imagine. (Read more about it here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/the-american-power-act/). The give-aways and concessions they had to put in there to get even this far threaten to so denude the bill that it hardly seems to be a victory. And even after all that, the pundits doubt it can pass.

Or perhaps it is this midrash on Noah that I had reason to teach recently and which frightens me more every time I do:

“When Noah came out of the ark, he saw the devastation. Horrified, he cried to God, challenging: 'God, how could you have done this?'

God replied, 'Oh Noah, don’t you see? When I told you I would destroy the world, I lingered and delayed, so that you would speak on its behalf, and on behalf of all its creatures and inhabitants. But once you knew you would be safe in the ark, you did not argue with Me, or work to make things right. And now you complain?'”

It is the complacency, the unnamed sense of privilege and ability to ride out this storm even if others suffer (though we are not experiencing a passing storm but a permanent rupture), and the lack of imagination for how bad things can get that increasingly astonish and alarm me.

How can one object to the aesthetics of wind turbines when the alternative is the loss of millions of acres of productive farmland; the scarcity if not absence of clean water - or any water for that matter - for more than half the earth; and the doubling of the land area friendly to deadly tropical diseases? How can one complain about voluntarily reducing one's footprint, and thus one's consumption of energy and resources, when the alternative is imposed world-wide scarcity and increased need? How would we feel if we came back 100 years from now and found that through our obstinacy, laziness, selfishness, inattentiveness, lack of imagination and all around foot-dragging that we have turned this Garden of Eden into a world of thorns and thistles?

And one hundred years is not so far away. For many of us, it is the world our grandchildren will inherit.

What we need to do seems clear, even surprisingly achievable and spiritually satisfying if we will it. So, nu?

The stakes are so very high. Beyond earth, where is life? What if we are it? What if we are the sole conscience and consciousness of the universe? What if it is all up to us?

We each occupy this precious planet for but a breath of time. We dare not trash it on our watch, for there will be no one after us to clean it up.

Spread the word. But more, model the way. Show your family, friends, bosses, co-workers how it is done. And how rewarding, fulfilling our new world can be. Invite them in and be their guide. Teach them the words to this new earth-song of ours. It is the only way we will save our planet, and ourselves.