Code of Env-ethics

I get angry sometimes when people don’t recycle. Or when they dispose of trash by chucking it out their driver side window into oncoming traffic, or when they don’t wash takeout containers—I KNOW THIS IS A FLIMSY PEICE OF SHIT PLASTIC FROM THAT CHINESE RESTAURANT, BUT I AM GOING TO PUT MY LEFTOVERS IN IT TOMORROW FOR WORK. CHRIST.

Anyway.

Environmentalism is one of my passions, thus, when confronted with a non-believer to the plea of mother earth I behave like a member of a cultist church hell-bent on conversion.

Like, I get it, world. There are a lot of things to focus on in the universe, things that steal our attention as we scroll through our Twitter feeds. That new Captain America movie looks sick, I KNOW. But if we don’t, oh, I don’t know, reconcile with our current policy regarding emissions we’ll be too busy ROAMING THE FURY ROAD THAT WAS ONCE VERDANT OKLAHOMA WHILE OUR OCEANS BECOME ACIDIC FIRE PITS TO CARE MUCH ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

(All right, I know, I’m using a generous amount of exaggeration.)

I’m like an exceptionally angry Captain Planet. If I could have Sailor Moon’s wardrobe, ya know?

But I digress.

Now, in my small, single human capacity, I have little sway over the larger schemes being conducted at the higher levels of our echeloned society. What I do know is that we are able, on the individual level, to affect change and in my simple mind there is an even simpler way to do that.

Give a fuck.

Not two fucks, maybe not even three fucks but just one.

If I could have it my way (and I assure, one day I will not) I would instill in the children of this world a sense of ownerlessness, a need for community building and pulic-minded thoughtfulness, and how better to hoard canned beans in the outgoing tide of our immiment destruction.

That’s why I’m not teaching your children.

So, let’s start small. I don’t want to let some “socialist” political agenda to take root in the hearts of our nations drooling infants, but just to change the details of our lives so that they better allow room for acceptance of one fact: your kids, and your kids’ kids, and your kids’ kids’ kids, and your kids’ kids’ kids’ singularity cloud monsters, will all be faced with the fallout of your failure. Or your success.

Make good choices

This is all about awareness and cultivating a stewardship of the future, so when I witness people watering their laws in the dead of summer, during a drought, I get what some would call irrationally irate. When I see people driving to class when the buses were perfectly available to take, I get enraged. It’s not that either of these things symbolize the inherent evil of people, it’s just that they’re ridiculous. You could make the argument that driving saves time, which is indeed a precious commodity, but it also creates more traffic because we are all clusterfucking up the highway. There are, of course, instances where these arguments fall under the weight of other social stories, ones that I can’t make adequately represented discussions for, but I’m speaking for the by and large. I’m generalizing. Har-har.

So does this kind of thinking mean I am somehow superior to those droll masses? Like how people view my innocuous vegetarianism through a lens of self-aggrandizing distrust, perceiving it not as a personal choice but as an attack on a meat-eating way of life? (Although, lol, shout out to the haters.)

Awe hell no. I lived once in a nice suburban home and enjoyed the comforts of an artificially heated sunroom floor in the winter months on which I would sprawl with all the grace of a beached whale, as well as long hot showers and the benefits of the unsustainable consumption of pineapples. Until recently. Now I’m living in Hawaii, in a small cabin with a roommate, doing work on an organic farm. So, ha-ha, I actually got a taste of my own medicine! And boy, is it kind of fucking sweet.

This isn’t to say metropolitan ideas of technology are bad. Hell, there’s an entire line of study dedicated to the fallacy of our obsession with nature, as it is neither morally right nor artificially deserving of divine protection and reverence. An argument, I assume, that is relevant to solipsistic and presumably nihilistic individuals. Or just, you know, philosophy students.

I am not among them.

But, kudos to the development of that idea. It’s actually pretty fascinating.

No, this is about how we can make the personal decisions that everyone says don’t matter because, well, they do. I’m not advocating for you to fling your television out the window, set your clothes on fire, and run naked through the forests of Idaho to hunt and gather, but rather to be conscious of the things that you feasibly do.

Although I support any decision to run naked through the forests of Idaho.

This is about realizing that, hey, you know what? I’m going to buy a reusable water bottle or, hey maybe I’ll try to avoid foods that aren’t in season locally or hey, I’ll turn off all the lights in my house when I leave and maybe volunteer some hours at the local farm collective, or, hey, move away from home to live on a commune farm. All viable options.

You should be aware of the power you have in these things. Sometimes, it is nice to look at the bigger picture and realize your small impacts can really affect people — and you ultimately want to positively affect them. Climate change is a divisive issue, but making conscious decisions to improve your well-being and the well-being of the future shouldn’t be such. People may debate the issue, and I certainly know my stance on it, but it’s difficult to reach out to people who disagree with the kind of vitriol I’ve relied on. Yes, the Koch brothers might as well be the Voldemorts of the environmental narrative, but vilifying sides and individuals creates misunderstanding and, occasionally, resentment. So we should all focus — no matter the views of whether there really is an increase in global temperature — on making this earth better. For us, for everything on this planet, and for the future of its existence. Sure, we can debate about nature’s role and humanity’s place in the circle of life, but the truth of the matter is that nothing is polarizing about wanting to make a better world. God actually encourages caring for our Mother Earth, so you can have a divine obligation. As a researcher, a scientific one. Or, as a humanist, even just a moral one.

Unless you consider yourself a super villain to these ideals, and enjoy the anarchic flights of fancy that chaos theory employs. Then by all means, go forth and flourish. But remember to you will have a nemesis and you don’t want it to be me. (Because ultimately I will prove to be a severe disappointment.)

In the end, whatever decisions we make are ultimately our own — but we should consider the people we love in all of then. The future is soooo far away, so worrying about it now seems almost ridiculous. Will I be alive by the time these things truly affect the earth? Maybe, but I’ll probably be old enough to not care about anything outside of reruns of SpongeBob loping across my mushy brain. But will my kids be alive? Yes. My grandkids? Most likely and they’ll be the ones inhertiting the earth I didn’t care enough about.

It’s like giving those kids a birthday cake you sat on. Sure, Hagrid was great and kind but that cake he gave Harry still had butt prints on it. That’s not what I want to get my kids. A butt-print cake earth. I want to give them a kinder, better world. I want to teach them stewardship and compassion, I want to underline the importance of unity, I want to preach about this earth and the people on it and their stories and lives and the intersections of them all.

But, ultimately, I’m asking the same of everyone else.

So be aware, do something good, and don the Helm of Environmental Compassion.

Or, you know, just give a fuck or two. It’s really that simple.