August 2009
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FacebookBy Margaret Chandler
Confession: I am an eco sinner. I don’t always take the bus, and I am a pathetic cyclist. I sometimes dine high on the food chain. I am a fickle composter. I used to joke that after I ate my organic seven-grain porridge in the morning, the rest of the day was a relentless downhill tumble. After all, it’s vexedly difficult to realize one’s best intentions when none of the dominant infrastructures be they public transport, food procurement, or housing are designed with sustainability in mind.
My sins are unique to my circumstances, but I’m sure you can make up your own list with alarming ease. After all, we can feel guilty about virtually anything if we care to indulge because
everything we do has an environmental chain reaction. To make
matters worse, we can even quantify our failings through online
calculators that will gladly tell us how extravagantly wasteful our
lifestyles truly are. Original sin pales in comparison.
Traditional religion at least offered the solace of redemption. Nowadays there’s just that nagging sense that you could and should do more and more and more… And even then your spot in a greener and saner world, i.e., heaven on earth, is by no means guaranteed because it’s not an exclusive paradise. Either we all get in or nobody does.
The guilt we suffer is an unintentional consequence of decades of environmental education and awareness raising done by well-meaning people, including yours truly, who believed that awareness would lead to deep-rooted and widespread societal change. Unfortunately, we have thus far kept mostly to our old ways but gone is the bliss of ignorance. As Henry Miller said, “Sin, guilt, neurosis. They are one and the same; the fruit of the tree of knowledge.”
Eco guilt is also fuelled by harbingers of doom and their grim messages that our behaviour is not only destroying ourselves but much of the evolutionary development of the last 60 million years. To take just one example of many, renowned scientist James Lovelock argues that climate change will cause “billions of us to die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” And you thought the current recession was bad news.
Dr. Rick Kool, a professor of environmental education and communication at Royal Roads University, has been giving presentations across the country on the psychology of hope and despair since 2005, and he believes that dire messaging is irresponsible and counterproductive. “During the darkest days of World War II when things were looking very grim, Churchill didn’t tell the British that the situation was hopeless,” Kool observes. “The British understood that they were all in it together, and that’s what we need to understand today.”
Ultimately, it’s about finding meaning. Kool likes to end his presentations with a quote from the 18th century Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: “The whole world and everything in it is a narrow bridge; the only thing is to not be afraid.”
For the most part, I tune out the strident apocalyptic divinations because fear is a mind and spirit killer. And it is yet another arrogance of ours to think we can definitively predict the future. Instead we need to remain open-minded and remember that we are part of an incredibly complex, ever evolving universe. Equally, we kid ourselves if we think we really understand what other civilizations have endured and overcome in the past. Telling ourselves this is the worst crisis humanity has ever faced or will ever face is impossible to prove and only deepens cynicism and despair.
Instead, I try replacing those dread-full messages with what has been referred to as “engaged optimism.” Maintaining a more sanguine outlook helps us trust in the process of transforming our society. In his poem “The Waking” Theodore Roethke suggests, “I learn by going where I have to go.”
If we embrace the contradictions inherent in life, we can easily grasp the dynamic balance between opposing forces. In other words, the both/and framework is a more realistic interpretation of the world than the either/or scenario. For example, Planet Earth is not either a dystopia or a utopia. It’s both a dystopia and a utopia. And I am both an eco sinner and an eco champion. Hurrah! Now I don’t feel so guilty.
TAKE ACTION:
- The other side of the guilt coin is responsibility. Ergo, flip the coin over and find ways to live responsibly. Take on specific and manageable goals such as the Nature Challenge on the David Suzuki site. There are many REAP Members whose products and services can help you achieve your sustainability goals.
- Don’t be hard on yourself. One person cannot save the planet (and it’s probably not the planet that needs saving). The government loves to focus on the individual and his or her contribution instead of what they should be doing to drive policy and regulations to make it easier for us to contribute meaningfully. Celebrate what you are doing and stay motivated to continue making changes where you can. Track your actions when you need a pat on the back.
- Find ways to collaborate with others on issues. Think guilds not guilts. Guilds worked effectively in medieval times for people with similar pursuits to protect mutual interests and maintain standards. Perhaps they need a 21st-century makeover.
- Rick Kool urges us to focus on the four C’s – caring, concern, connection and community. Check the resources page at www.reapcalgary.com for a list of local not-for-profits that you can get involved with.
- Read the works of eco-philosopher and scholar Johanna Macy who has created a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change. Her group methods, known as the Work That Reconnects, have helped thousands of people transform despair and apathy into constructive, collaborative action. The acknowledgement of our pain for the world and each other can actually energize us to take action.
- When, despite all your best efforts, you still feel guilty or anxious, let nature restore you. This doesn’t mean you have to get in your car and drive for an hour to the mountains to commune with nature. Eco solace can include gardening, hanging out with animals, going for a picnic, listening to the birds sing, whatever helps you connect.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I really enjoyed (and needed) this article.
Thank you.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Thank you Margaret for your thought provoking article. Sometimes people that work in these areas (like me) may feel that they are not doing enough to make a difference. The fact that they are making the effort is what matters.
August 29th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Hi… thanks for the article.
Could you recommend a book by Johanna Macy? I couldn’t seem to find her on Amazon.
Cheers,
Chris
August 30th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Hi Chris,
Joanna has published eight books with New Society Publishers. Check out this link for details or to order her DVD series: http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3961
You can also see a clip from her DVD on You Tube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwlXTAT8rLk
Enjoy!
Stephanie