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Green guilt
I heard somebody on the radio talking about this a half a year ago or so, and not since. I wonder why.
I'm concerned about the environment, so I try to do my part. I recycle, I compost, I have a shower turn-off valve so it's not running while I soap up. I drive a fuel-efficient car and buy recycled paper. I wash my clothes in cold water when I can, and I'm the person in the house who's always trying to turn off lights in the rooms we're not immediately using, even when we have CFLs installed. I use reusable bags at the store. I'm like just about all of you, more or less.
Yet it doesn't feel like enough. I still hear about the Great Plastic Patch in the ocean, about how we're on the brink (if not past) the critical warming point which could trigger mass extinctions, how we're going to lose all the coral reefs regardless, how polar bears are struggling with no ice. I've taken to avoiding the news stories, especially from eco-centric groups or programs like Living On Earth, but I can't avoid them entirely.
And so I feel guilty about what resources I am using. I run the dryer in the summer, occasionally, due to time constraints. I'm acutely aware of every plastic bag I throw away, every kettle of hot water I heat in the morning, every tank of gas I go through, every day I have the AC running in the afternoon to keep the shut-in cat at a livable temperature. These are things I cannot cut out of my life without drastically restructuring it, and yet they make me feel bad. The news articles make me feel angry and helpless, because I'm doing everything I can think of to do, and yet its so obviously a drop in the bucket. Even all of us drops in the bucket are not enough to stop what's happening. So I live eco-friendly as we're supposed to, and I'm miserable about it.
The point of the person I heard many months ago was "Where's the reward for all this hard work and sacrifice?" From a religious background himself, he said that the green movement was going about motivation all wrong; it should learn from various religions, in which you sacrifice things (keeping kosher, or at Lent), you work hard to live your life as you should, and you get the reward of acknowledgment from your clergy and your community and the spiritual benefit besides. As he put it, in the old religions, you would fast, but then you feast. The trouble with today's green movement is, where's the feast for all this fasting? Where's the heartfelt "great work" and esteem of our peers? Barring that, where's the sense that we have done real and permanent good?
All we hear instead is "you need to do more". We have radical greens who live entirely off the grid, wearing local sustainable clothing, who eat vegetarian from their own gardens and use a windmill to get their well water. Not everybody can do that, but that's held up as an ideal for us to strive for, and anything else is Not Enough. Anybody who grew up with a parent who was impossible to satisfy knows how empty and frustrating that sort of life is... and yet we do it For The Good Of The Planet. There's no higher cause, is there? We can't even give up and leave. And there's no end in sight.
If anybody has ever wondered why we haven't managed to get a bigger number of people to buy into the green movement, this is why. There's no reward other than an ephemeral sense that we're helping, somehow, a little. This is the worst sort of diet, the kind where you feel deprived and guilty even when you're doing it right, and you know you have to keep it up for the rest of your life because it's good for you. It's little wonder the average joe isn't interested in signing up.
We need to find a reward, somehow, somewhere. Otherwise you'll start seeing a backlash from all but the hardest core, and that won't be good for anybody.
I'm concerned about the environment, so I try to do my part. I recycle, I compost, I have a shower turn-off valve so it's not running while I soap up. I drive a fuel-efficient car and buy recycled paper. I wash my clothes in cold water when I can, and I'm the person in the house who's always trying to turn off lights in the rooms we're not immediately using, even when we have CFLs installed. I use reusable bags at the store. I'm like just about all of you, more or less.
Yet it doesn't feel like enough. I still hear about the Great Plastic Patch in the ocean, about how we're on the brink (if not past) the critical warming point which could trigger mass extinctions, how we're going to lose all the coral reefs regardless, how polar bears are struggling with no ice. I've taken to avoiding the news stories, especially from eco-centric groups or programs like Living On Earth, but I can't avoid them entirely.
And so I feel guilty about what resources I am using. I run the dryer in the summer, occasionally, due to time constraints. I'm acutely aware of every plastic bag I throw away, every kettle of hot water I heat in the morning, every tank of gas I go through, every day I have the AC running in the afternoon to keep the shut-in cat at a livable temperature. These are things I cannot cut out of my life without drastically restructuring it, and yet they make me feel bad. The news articles make me feel angry and helpless, because I'm doing everything I can think of to do, and yet its so obviously a drop in the bucket. Even all of us drops in the bucket are not enough to stop what's happening. So I live eco-friendly as we're supposed to, and I'm miserable about it.
The point of the person I heard many months ago was "Where's the reward for all this hard work and sacrifice?" From a religious background himself, he said that the green movement was going about motivation all wrong; it should learn from various religions, in which you sacrifice things (keeping kosher, or at Lent), you work hard to live your life as you should, and you get the reward of acknowledgment from your clergy and your community and the spiritual benefit besides. As he put it, in the old religions, you would fast, but then you feast. The trouble with today's green movement is, where's the feast for all this fasting? Where's the heartfelt "great work" and esteem of our peers? Barring that, where's the sense that we have done real and permanent good?
All we hear instead is "you need to do more". We have radical greens who live entirely off the grid, wearing local sustainable clothing, who eat vegetarian from their own gardens and use a windmill to get their well water. Not everybody can do that, but that's held up as an ideal for us to strive for, and anything else is Not Enough. Anybody who grew up with a parent who was impossible to satisfy knows how empty and frustrating that sort of life is... and yet we do it For The Good Of The Planet. There's no higher cause, is there? We can't even give up and leave. And there's no end in sight.
If anybody has ever wondered why we haven't managed to get a bigger number of people to buy into the green movement, this is why. There's no reward other than an ephemeral sense that we're helping, somehow, a little. This is the worst sort of diet, the kind where you feel deprived and guilty even when you're doing it right, and you know you have to keep it up for the rest of your life because it's good for you. It's little wonder the average joe isn't interested in signing up.
We need to find a reward, somehow, somewhere. Otherwise you'll start seeing a backlash from all but the hardest core, and that won't be good for anybody.
no subject
Personally, I get a huge sense of personal satisfaction out of the eco-friendly things I do. They talk in literature about permaculture about things that you put into a landscape design having at least a dual purpose - shade trees that produce fruit. I hang laundry because it is cheaper and more green, but also because I actually enjoy the process, and I think line dried sheets feel amazing on my skin. I garden because it is green, but also for food quality and budget. I'm vegan because I think it's the most eco-friendly way for me to eat, but also because I don't like the idea of eating animals and I feel healthier eating that way. I use reusable bags because it's green but also because I get incredibly stressed out by clutter and I hate throwing bags away.
The ones that make me crazy are the ones who do NOTHING.