Ahah! For some eco-activists, deep ecological truths are arrived at in spectacular natural settings, like viewing the Grand Canyon. For others, an unsettling, dramatic experience, like seeing a Mount Everest sized heap of plastic waste, motivates action.
Hearing a sermon that pointed out “American disposals are better nourished than millions of children around the world” was so true and so jarring for me, that I vowed to start recycling that minute - recycling was then cutting edge environmental activity. Step by step, year-by-year, my consciousness about waste grew, until I became an environmental activist. Fortunately, many others were leading the way.
However, I was still focused on the personal, rather than the societal policy aspects of eco-behavior. As Dick Cheney famously opined, “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”
Reading a story about Sudanese refugee teenagers adjusting to life in Southern California gave me a perspective on how crazy American consumerism, our national “policy” for maintaining a so-called healthy economy, is:
“On their first afternoon together, Bernstein took them to Wal-Mart for clothes. They gaped at the endless rows of textiles and gadgets, including some that looked like futuristic handguns. ‘Those are hair dryers,’ Bernstein explained. Benson couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Why would you buy a machine to dry your hair? It dries on its own.”
Looking through the eyes of the world’s have-nots shocked me into awareness of the ridiculousness of life in our American bubble. We could maintain a high quality of life so much more resource-efficiently if we just started paying attention.
Doug Seiler, an architect specializing in green building, designed a Bio-Digester in the 1970’s during our country’s first major energy crisis. His knowledge of generating fuel from waste has grown over the years. Recently he created an updated Bio-Digester suited for third world conditions, winning a Buckminster Fuller award for his submission.
Seiler cites the influence of E. F. Schumacher’s classic Small is Beautiful, a manifesto of sorts for sustainable living, as continuing to inspire him professionally and personally. The ‘ahah!’ moment for Doug came on a family road trip when he pulled over to the side of the highway and watched the hundreds of cars whizzing by the four of them. “All these 3000 pounds of steel, guzzling fossil fuel, spewing carbon emissions, trashing the planet just to move people around…. When you’re in your own car, you don’t notice the impact of driving.”
Car, bubble…whatever.
Meenal Raval of Mt. Airy, presently working for two local food businesses, Farm To City and Common Market, was raised in Mumbai. She still recalls researching solar power for a high school report. Thirty years later, the words she read, “Most people think electricity comes out of the plug,” stay with her. Last year she and her husband Afshin installed a solar-powered water heater, detailed at their blog HotWaterForever.
For each of us, a different trigger. But when it comes to our national energy habits we all share Doug Seiler’s dream: “America doesn’t have to be stupid and obnoxious forever!”
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