The Clock is Ticking…

It has recently come to my attention that the place in which the human race inhabits is deteriorating right before our eyes. I had this sudden realization that what has occurred on Earth already is not just the beginning of a long chain of events, but an actual portrayal of our feet in wet cement. Put simply, were in the midst of a catastrophe we don’t even know we’re in. Yes, that seems like a serious exaggeration and an even more extreme statement, but is it not true? Does the rise in ocean acidification and sea level not validate such an accusation? Does the depletion of the ozone as well as our beautiful shorelines vanishing not strike a nerve in anyone? It certainly seems it, and I can now say something such as this with both confidence and assurance as opposed to months ago. I was enlightened by novels and essays such as Desert Solitaire and The Land Ethic over the duration of the semester, but I felt the two narratives that best displayed the decaying environment that is Earth were McKibben’s Eaarth, and Butler’s The Parable of the Sower.

Both narratives aimed to depict a doomed Earth, but did so in very different manners. McKibben chose an incredibly blunt, yet informative method (facts/statistics) of informing the readers of the environmental decay occurring before us. A scary method, albeit a relatively effective one. Butler, on the other hand, decided to steer clear of logos as a writing tool and instead targeted our emotions and the effect they have on our actions. A more empathetic and even sympathetic form of enlightening us.

It could be difficult at times to take in every fact that McKibben offered, for the majority of them were overwhelming, but there were a few statements that certainly touched an incredibly raw nerve in the reader. On page 25, McKibben strikingly stated, “We’re running Genesis backward, decreating.” A strange statement one may think. And the word “decreating?” An imaginary word, but most definitely not an empty one. In fact, such a word proved to be riveting to one’s mindset and how one looks upon the environment before them. To be given such a strong statement, followed by McKibben saying that this “decreating” is a chain of events in which one lack of resources (food-phytoplankton) leads to a depletion in the population of other life, was an eye-opening thing to say. Imagine a triangle being the shape of all forms of life on Earth, with something such as micro bacteria lying at the base of the triangle followed by plants, phytoplankton, weaker animals, stronger animals, and then humans as one reaches the tip of the triangle. Each layer needs each successive layer for survival, for if one layer erodes, the chain effect can take place followed by the potential loss of a species. It’s sad to say, but we’re blind to such things happening, and the life that once inhabited this fine planet will fade away before we even have a chance to say goodbye.

Contrary to offering a multitude of statistics, Butler chose to appeal to one’s emotions when speaking of the decaying Earth. It seemed as if Butler wanted to lay out a potential scenario, in which the human race had returned to its primitive state, thus allowing the chaos theory to prevail and the world to fall to shambles. On page 10, Butler lays out Earth as it stands in 2024, saying “Crazy to live without a wall to protect you. Even in Robledo, most of the street poor — squatters, winos, junkies, homeless people in general — are dangerous. That’s enough to make anyone dangerous. Worse for me, they often have things wrong with them. They cut off each other’s ears, arms, legs…” Could one imagine such a frightening scene? A time in which walls need to be built between communities in order to separate the good from the bad. Is this not the feudal ages? Do humans not have more sense then this? One may think, but one could still find themselves to be very wrong. Butler instills this mindset into the readers, calling for action and change in a world not representative of her time period, but our time period. She portrays the “destructive fanaticism” that humans hold onto so desperately with such negativity, but in the most realistic manner possible. A foreshadowing from the future one may say.

Now even though both authors attempted to stimulate the reader in separate ways, both still applied the same tactic in each, that being — scare tactics. On the cover, Eaarth seemed to be an informative narrative, upon which one can enlighten themselves to what has already happened to the so-called “old Earth,” when in reality it’s just one large scare tactic chock full of bone-chilling facts. The same also goes for Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, in which she represented an actual apocalypse only ten measly years after the year (2015) we’re in now — a scare tactic in itself let alone the dark words that line the novel. Both narratives sought to bring a change to the reader’s mindset, and after reading such novels, one may believe that they did in fact flip a switch that had not yet been located in many people.

When saying they both use scare tactics, it literally means that both authors utilize horrifying events in order to bring about change in the lives of many. McKibben used events occurring presently, while Butler used events to occur in the future. A prime example of McKibben exploiting human action to bring about a greener change would be his stating, “The planet on which our civilization evolved no longer exists…We may, with commitment and luck, yet be able to maintain a planet that will sustain some kind of civilization, but it won’t be the same planet, and hence it can’t be the same civilization. The earth that we knew — the only earth that we ever knew — is gone.” (27) A serious assertion, for it nearly feels as if he’s exploiting our ignorance rather than our action, but nonetheless, something to legitimately ponder over. Imagine an Earth so changed and dissimilar to its older counterpart that it should be renamed “Eaarth”; a brilliant way to bring about change in a society so unaware that a bullet could whizz by its face without even noticing it.

Butler also employed scare tactics, but in a much different manner than McKibben. She represented the dark possibilities that lie ahead of us by portraying a society consumed not only with environmental crises, but also sheer chaos. An example being when Butler stated, “…and a big black and white dog came wandering down toward our camp with the fresh-looking, bloody hand and forearm of a child in its mouth…We rounded a bend in a dry stream bed, and there these kids were, roasting a severed human, maneuvering it where it lay in the middle of their fire atop the burning wood by twisting its foot.” (271). A traumatizing scene indeed; the idea of man becoming equal to the animal. The idea that the human race will stoop to lows never before realized. To think that this could all be possible within the next ten years…just sickening. An employment of scare tactics to near perfection.

Now what to do with such information? What pertinence does it hold? To me, such descriptions of our environment should be held in the highest regard, for I believe most people look upon environmental change with a grain of salt. It’s easily acknowledged, but rarely acted upon — a sad story indeed. Nevertheless, what the authors were describing was our Earth being a place of deterioration. A place of helter-skelter that will soon reach its breaking point, and the people that inhabit this unique planet won’t even recognize the greatness that they once held on to. We see all the physical changes, but do we really see what’s happening? Are we watching the rug come right out from underneath us? Is our blindness our own demise? All legitimate questions with one similar answer — that being, yes. I speak for all humans when I say we most definitely recognize the impending collapse of what we call home, but a call for action in the near future seems unlikely in the current political environment. In the end, our thoughts must evolve into a plan of action, for if they don’t, chaos will prevail, and civilization as we know it will end.