Paradox revisited: How to stop destroying our only home

Today I’m picking up my train of thought about the Peg Paradox, which if you haven’t heard of it goes like this: “If this is the only planet we know of that will support us, then how is it that we consistently choose technologies and habits that destroy it?“ I’m back with a revelation about why we expend valuable resources to make and to dispose of unnecessary stuff, and some ideas for how to untangle the mess we’ve made of the environment.

Why We Are Systematically Destroying Our Only Home – it’s the stupid economy

In her book “Greenwashing, Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Planet,” Kendra Pierre-Louise methodically debunks the idea that buying “green” products absolves us of the need to fundamentally change. Chapter by chapter, she walks through our fuel, our food, our clothes, and our cars, all with the same result: the problem is overconsumption and we simply cannot consume our way out of our current environmental mess. A case in point is how most of us buy our food. Here’s Pierre-Louise:

“For example, the meat we purchase at our local supermarket, enclosed on a foam tray, wrapped in plastic, and then put into a plastic bag before being double bagged with the rest of our groceries, represents an order of magnitude of consumption never before seen in human history. Once upon a time, that same purchase would have been wrapped in butcher’s paper before being tucked into a tote or maybe a paper bag. Not that this was necessarily ideal, but we’ve replaced a cycle that was at least biodegradable and based on renewable resources with one dependent on layers and layers of non-renewable resources that will house our food for but the smallest moment, and yet endure in our ecosystems for an untold number of years. In the face of this, hauling our canvas tote bag to the supermarket is not going to solve the problem.”

Great, so we can’t paper over the problem with selective individual action. My Prius-driving, reusable tote toting self takes a deep sigh. Nice try but it’s not enough. There’s something more systemic that leads the collective “we” to consistently choose unsustainable processes. But we’re smart and we could figure this out, right? And we’re gonna need to figure this out soon as oceans keep rising and ecosystems keep disappearing. Example of the week: Bye bye toucan, bye bye Amazonian tall palms. Why don’t we do something about it? Here’s Pierre-Louis again:

“We don’t act because of one unsettling truth: if we were to make reducing our consumption to a level that was both materially satisfying and ecologically sustainable our central focus, our entire global economic system would collapse.”

Collapse, as in kaput. Economics scares me a little bit – it was one of the more inscrutable subjects I attempted in college. But I know enough to get that collapse is not a good scenario. Turns out that our economy is predicated on growth, continual growth, year over year. But growth is bad for the environment. There it is – the nugget of the Peg Paradox. That’s why we don’t change. (This nugget is not solely owned by capitalism, by the way. As far as the environment is concerned all the economy-isms are the same. None of them factor in the health of the planet as worthy of consideration.) This fundamental disconnect between the economy and the environment, juxtaposed with the simple truth that the Earth is a closed system (except for solar radiation, what we see is what we’ve got), gives us the unsustainable equation of withdrawing too many resources in the name of "prosperity." As Pierre-Louise puts it,

“While our economic system depends on us consuming more, the environment demands that we use less.”

So the trouble maker is the global economy, on which we are reliant. We’re stuck. Or are we….

Some ideas for how to untangle this big mess

Pierre-Louise set out to write a book that not only pointed to the dire problems, but also offered solutions. She suggests collective action, because individual action is not going to cut it. Here are a couple of actions she says will help:

• Get to know your neighbors, and start talking to them and your friends about health, money and the future. Encourage recycling, pool resources.
• Create a parallel “light” economy based on relationship and connected to the environment. Buy local. Re-use. Barter.

My own suggestion mirrors Pierre-Louise’s and is a two-parter:

1) start by putting “stuff” into perspective

• Read NPR’s coverage of neighbors pulling together following the recent devastating tornado in Oklahoma. “It’s just stuff” we are reminded by one survivor. "The memories are in our heads and in our hearts."
• Watch and weep as 17-year-old Zach Sobiech celebrates life while dying from cancer, a poignant reminder that happiness does not come from accumulating stuff. Like Zach said, “It’s really simple, actually. Just try and make people happy.”

2) move on to the advanced level and get creative about finding less resource-intensive ways to amuse yourself and to celebrate, and encourage others to join you

• Bike instead of drive just once this month. Enjoy the ride. Convince a friend to try it too.
• Skip a trip to Costco/Sam’s Club. See what happens. Ask your friends what they think of warehouse shopping, discuss the pros and cons. Discuss sharing a membership and shopping together to split things up so nothing goes to waste, because you alone can’t eat that much granola before the use by date arrives.
• Plant a cherry tomato plant and eat those instead of the 3 pounds of goldfish crackers you would have bought on impulse at Costco. Teach your kid and the neighbor kid how to plant and care for a garden.
• Reuse these ideas from my Earth Day post: take a walk like Michael Moore, and plant some shit like Ron Finley
• ____ Insert your idea here in a comment, or share on your own blog. Seth Godin, my hero in the blogosphere, celebrated his 5,000th post this week. He wonders why more people aren’t writing like this. He says, and I concur, “For me, the privilege is sharing what I notice, without the pressure of having to nail it every time..."

Thank you!