Paradise Loss

We all lead busier and busier lives and sometimes it just seems easier to disregard, bypass and just NOT THINK ABOUT some of the bigger and more unmanageable phenomena that take place in the world around us.  And also, since there are other places where information is disseminated and discussed, it sometimes seems less necessary to use the blog as as an additional forum for addressing these subjects.  But today, stopping in to vist Little Augury, I found the link to The Errant Aesthete's post about the (Western Hemisphere) Gulf Nightmare.  What else can you call it?  (As opposed to the Middle East Gulf Nightmare which is equally endlessly ongoing and illogical!)  I think EA's post was beautifully done.  And deserved my acknowledgement at least.  

When I was a younger person and it was announced that there was a hole in the ozone layer, I had serious conversations with myself and eventually my husband, about it.  As the hole grew only larger, I made the decision not to bring more children into the world.  I did not feel very hopeful about what it was that I would leave them.  How could I look them in the eye and encourage them to be "optimistic"?  And have faith in their leaders and their fellow man?  Or even assure them that their lonely actions could make a difference?

I do not believe that this disaster in the Gulf was entirely accidental.  I think that if ONE person had been stopped, if THOUSANDS of people had had better leaders and bosses, if MILLIONS of people had made different choices, a disaster like this spill in the Gulf might not have happened.  I believe that it is a disaster that has been organized by negligence, arrogance, ignorance, and corruption over many many years.

Am I so wrong?

I just read a very depressing article in the New Yorker ("The Inventor's Dilemna") about Saul Griffith, a genius ex-MIT environmentalist/inventor who more or less now believes that the cost of recreating our infrastructure in America along "green" lines is prohibitive, not simply dollar wise, but that the impact to the environment of getting to that place would be gravely destructive in itself.  Which means that our little blue marble is already THAT FRAGILE and that vulnerable that it could not sustain the development and resource harvesting necessary.  He believes that the only concrete hope for us, and for his own child, is to reduce what he and his family consumes.  And persuade his friends to do the same.

I often have a laugh and say that the Chinese were the original environmentalists.  We hate waste and try to squeeze every little last bit of value out of whatever it is that we own.  We turn off lights pathologically and wear some clothes till they are embarassing, reuse and rewash our ziploc bags, hoard bits of string, rubber bands and wrapping paper, pack our dishwashers too tight, and use and savor every piece of an animal (including it's eyes) because we are loathe to have any little thing go to waste.  Many of us are very very careful about what we spend our money on.  If we buy something, we expect it to LAST!  A LONG TIME!  That is changing dramatically already in the new China.  But I nevertheless feel that some of us Chinese (and children of the Depression - your grandparents and great-grandparents and people born outside of American privilege and plenty) have had some very good habits (if comical) ingrained in us.

REUSE RECYCLE AND REPURPOSE is becoming a tired cliche already.  But I honor it.  Can we find a new way to say it?  To keep it a fresh and energizing and inspiring idea?  A new way to imagine it?  A new way to live it?

As if our lives depended on it!  Because they do.

What are your ideas?  What can you live better without?  Yes, I AM.  SOMEONE ELSE!  Asking it AGAIN!