12.20.97
HOW WILL THE NEW YEAR BE DIFFERENT?
By Jackie Giuliano
Kah Ying and her son see a waterfall during his first visit to nature. (photo
copyright 1997 Jackie Giuliano, all rights reserved)
What do we want the new year to bring? What will we demand that the new year bring?
What will we ask Santa to bring? Will it be the latest technological gadget or will it be
some clarity into the content of our souls? I know which one I want it to be. But asking
for the gadget is tempting.
Since the scientific revolution in the 1600s, people in the developed nations of the Earth
have walked inexorably down a path towards reliance on technological solutions to life's
choices. These technological solutions have inevitably involved the creation, and need for
disposal of, huge amounts of chemicals and materials that we now know to be toxic.
Yet we do not choose to stop using substances that we know cause harm. Those who lead our
industrial complex and those political leaders who support economic health over human and
ecosystem health have chosen instead to continue producing and disposing of toxic
substances. But the concept of disposal is flawed and fallacious - there is no place for
our toxic trash to go except here on our Earth, buried or dumped among its inhabitants.
There is no such place as "away." Everything is still in our, or someone else's,
backyard. The inescapable web of life brings us into daily contact with these substances,
with life-threatening effects.
But everything is OK, isn't it? I had a student tell me in an introductory environmental
science class last week that he is tired of all the doom and gloom. Everything is going to
work out, he said. That is certainly a very safe and comfortable belief.
But the danger of such a belief is that we fall into what I call the Lullaby of Misplaced
Responsibility. When we do not wish to examine the dark side that naturally accompanies
the light, then we won't want to take responsibility for any of the darkness either. I
believe that all will be all right, too - eventually, after much hardship and darkness,
and only if we the people force our eyes open.
The effects of these toxic practices on our world and our health can no longer be debated
as they were when Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962 and awakened the world to
the folly of ignoring the interconnectedness of all life. Three generations have now grown
up in a society where toxic substances have made their way deep into the webs of our
lives. Many thousands of generations of animal, insect, bird, and plant life have felt the
magnifying effects of toxic exposure. We have consumed many of them as our foods.
The December 19, 1997 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that all people are now at great risk
from mercury poisoning. Coal-fired power plants and the manufacture of many common
products such as fluorescent light bulbs, batteries, thermometers, and electrical relays
releases mercury into our atmosphere. It is in the air, on the ground, and when it rains,
it travels through our lakes, streams, and sewers into the ocean where it accumulates in
the fatty tissues of such fish as pike, bass, walleye, tuna, swordfish, shark, and others.
People who eat fish for subsistence or eat fish even once per week are at risk from
life-threatening nervous system disorders that affect language, attention, and memory
centers of the brain. Pregnant women and children are particularly susceptible.
This is but one example of the thousands of toxics that pervade our world. The serious
study of how our world works and how we impact it can no longer be considered
"optional." The day is fast approaching when it will be everyone's business to
understand environmental impacts, and when toxic waste cleanup will be the number one
business in the nation and perhaps the world. Many successful stock portfolios include
toxic waste cleanup companies. I have considered investing in them myself. It is the one
business you can be sure will exist in the future.
The Lullaby I spoke of also sings of infinite resources. We consume wildly, each purchase
affirming the subconscious belief that we will never run out of stuff. This fantasy of
limitless growth, says Kenny Ausubel in "Restoring the Earth," has magnified
"social inequities and exploited resources from the poorest, most powerless regions
and people, while concentrating environmental and social devastation there. The system
wastes people as well as stuff," Ausubel writes.
The average U.S. citizen consumes over 25 pounds of basic materials per day. In 1990,
mines scouring the skin of the Earth moved more soil and rock than all the world's rivers
combined. That same average citizen produces 1,500 pounds of garbage each year. It is
estimated by the Worldwatch Institute that four cents out of every dollar spent on goods
goes into packaging.
Solutions abound for all these problems, but until we stop singing the Lullaby and take
direct responsibility, the solutions are of little value. So as we contemplate the new
year, we have to ask ourselves how we can remake our lives and rethink our priorities. And
we must realize that we are not alone in our journey and our struggles.
I am blessed to have had so many opportunities to share my vision and to learn of the
visions of others. So many of you who read these columns have sent e-mail messages of
support and encouragement and have shared your hopes and dreams.
Rose wrote me that she "felt a calling to make some changes and help the earth,
starting with myself." Jane wrote that the "Healing Our World" series
"has become an oasis for me - your words touch my heart and soul and have encouraged
me to begin again to seek a means of working with and for the earth. Jaime from Brazil
wrote "Eating less, meditating more, buying less, traveling less, walking and
communicating more is the solution." He goes on to offer four practices: "1.
develop mindfulness (teach everyone to meditate), 2. develop technology for the small, 3.
change to the small, and 4. link all the smaller to make a big organism."
John in Australia recounted a memorable experience that reminded him of the web of life.
"I remember one day myself when working in the Government Offices in East Perth, here
in WA (Perth is a city of 1/4 million, the capital of Western Australia, a state 1/3rd the
size of the continental USA and our only city inhabited by more than 120,000 people), and
having had a "hard" and hopefully quickly forgettable time of it. Crossing the
street to get to the car park, I had to pass a plane tree that was covered with the
greenery of spring. Suddenly I heard a "hoot" and there, resting about one metre
(three feet) from my head I could see that an owl had made its nest. It converted a day
that was very forgettable into being memorable and lightened my step enormously."
Richard shared his vision a few months ago. "Right now we are living as inmates of
industrialism, our lives constrained by hard concrete and rigid thinking; we live encelled
in rooms, cars, cubicles, rushing from one to another in nervous orderly rows, and like
prisoners we spend our evenings slouched forlornly in front of television sets. The walls
that keep us from a free full life are sometimes actual but more often habitual. There's
still a whole world out there. We have the chance right now to take the better parts of
technology and philosophy and build a civilization that lives within its means. The means
to that accomplishment are within ourselves: eyes to see, heart to care, mind to
comprehend. And hands to build with. Once we've built a sustainable culture, we'll have a
place in the world again, and the world a place in us."
Holly wrote that because of reading "Healing Our World," she was
"discovering writings and ideas that I love, and feel like I have a new friend who is
writing me letters each week. You are really doing a great service to us by keeping us
aware of how our hearts inform us of how to live, if only we will listen." She is so
right. Our hearts know it all - we just have to learn to communicate with ourselves again.
And just today, Cindy wrote, "Thank you so much for your thought-provoking musings on
taking action on behalf of the earth...and our selves. I, too, believe there are simple
actions we can take that have incredibly powerful benefits - for me personally, for those
with whom I have daily contact, and ultimately for positive change on a global scale.
Thank you for the reminder about what is truly important and meaningful during this time
on earth. And thank you for doing what you are doing - I am inspired and thankful that I
am not doing this work alone."
So many people are thinking and revisioning their lives. I am grateful for all of the
efforts being made by so many to reintroduce themselves to our Mother Earth.
Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well loved one.
walk mindfully, well loved one.
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
Be always coming home.
-- Ursula K. Le Guin
I wish you all the most joyous of new years, and I send you my loving support in your
journey from the darkness to the light.
Hold on to what is good
even if it is
a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.
-- Nancy Wood
RESOURCES
1. Kenny Ausubel's work can be read in his book "Restoring the Earth: Visionary
Solutions from the Bioneers," published in 1997 by H.J. Kramer, Tiburon, California.
Look for it at Powells Books at http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/track.pl/Welcome-80.html?id=863287309-5&
2. Visit other visionary thinkers at http://www.bioneers.org/1997/home.htm
3. Visit the Macrocosm home page often for activist ideas at http://www.macronet.org/macronet/
4. Visit an interesting web site dedicated to Rachel Carson. It is run by the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection at http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/Rachel_Carson/Rachel_Carson.htm
5. Visit the Rachel Carson Homestead Association at http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/Rachel_Carson/Rachel_Carson.htm
6. For more information on the threat from mercury, visit the Mercury Links at http://www.portland.com/mercury/merclinx.htm
{Jackie Giuliano can be found preparing for the new year in Venice, California. He is a
Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University
of Phoenix Southern California Campuses. He is also the Educational Outreach Manager for
the Ice and Fire Preprojects, a NASA program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send
space probes to Jupiter's moon Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun. Please send your
thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackieg@jps.net}
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