Jules HoeptingIt’s the 51st anniversary of Earth Day. And we’ve come pretty far. But, climate change is a marathon race, not a 100 yard sprint. We’ve got a long way to go, and we’re going to need drive, we’re going to need passion to get through to the end of the race. Not a short burst of inspiration.
The following is a open letter I wrote as an assignment in a writing class. It touches upon the topics of who is to blame for the climate crisis, why it is a problem to use so much stuff, how we can economically solve the climate crisis, a short history of successful environmental laws, and what the average citizen can do to slow down the heating of the Earth.
Who is to blame for the crisis.
To the educated middle class folks who gave up fighting for environmental justice,
You probably think this letter should be addressed to Corporate America, since the monopolistic, conglomerate corporations are to blame, not you. But Corporate America would not read this letter. You might.
It’s not arguable: 97% of scientists agree a climate crisis is happening and humans are accelerating it. Corporate America is aware of this, of course, but Corporate America has made a lot of money and accumulated a lot of power from polluting the planet. By short-term economic thinking, Corporate America wouldn’t want to change its ways. The short-term benefits of polluting the planet outweigh the costs. By basic human physiology, Corporate America wouldn’t want to change, because change is hard. Power is delicious and addictive and leads to abuse.
Corporate America is made up of humans. People. Some of these people are keystones in its structure. Most of these people are bricks in the ugly factory walls. Most bricks have other bricks on top of them, weighing them down. Most bricks have cement around them, holding them in place. The bricks stay a part of the building because it is easier to support the structure than abandon the structure. Even if the bricks fell out, how far away from the factory would they get before they got stuck in something else?
You probably think the metaphorical bricks I am talking about are factory workers in foreign countries. People working long hours for terrible pay that does not support them. People who work in these factories because they do not have other options for making money.
Or maybe you think I’m talking about idegenous persons. People who live on reservations, who have been reduced to 2% of the U.S.’s land. People who have been forced to relocate, to live with toxic chemical dumps, on lands over-hunted by white men, on homelands made into parks, in a society where their culture is made into a tourist gimmick and their history is barely mentioned in schools.
Yes, all those people are soot-covered bricks on the bottom of the walls. Ones we can easily ignore, since they are a part of the underground foundation. Out of sight, out of mind. But you are a metaphorical brick too. A brick high up in the structure with a lot less pressure on it. Maybe you work for a corporation.
I’ve worked for Walmart for several months. Despite my personal hatred towards plastic bags, I’ve given out a mortifying number of them due to corporate policy. I helped people buy plastic-coated foods, cheap clothing, cheap toys. I worked at Walmart because the pay was good, the job wasn’t bad, and the scheduling was flexible. The benefits of working for the corporation outweighed the costs of rebelling against the corporation. Of spending more money on local produce. On food that isn’t pre-made, isn’t covered in plastic. Isn’t available for purchase 24/7. And that’s how a lot of Americans feel: the cheaper the products, the better. Walmart isn’t known for quality; Walmart is known for cheap convenience.
Even if you don’t work for a corporation, you feel its effects. American culture is capitalism. What is in style, clothing wise, toy wise, is constantly changing. We love trends. We love things. We love things that don’t last.
The problem with stuff.
Americans are expected to acquire stuff. Americans are expected to have casual clothes and business casual clothes and dress-up clothes. Americans are expected to have a whole slew of electric appliances: a vacuum, microwave, blender, stove, toaster, hairdryer, hair straightener, multiple appliance chargers, etc. After a few years, maybe a decade, Americans need to rebuy these appliances. Americans are expected to have computers and cell phones, which, on purpose, become obsolete within a few years, forcing more purchases.
In addition to “required” purchases, there are plenty of unnecessary ones. Why is it tradition to give each other things for Christmas, for Easter, for birthdays? We don’t need more things. The storage industry has been on the rise because we have too many things. There are more cars in the United States than there are drivers. Americans are leading the world in terms of garbage produced per person.
The funny thing is, after all this stuff is acquired, it is not worth much. Nobody wants it. At least, nobody in this wealthy nation wants it.
I’ve walked through an abandoned property with a yard full of stuff, with barns full of stuff, with a house full of stuff, half of it in boxes, some of it seemingly left in place, the majority of it skewed around. Beds thrown against the wall. Shirts hanging on door frames, probably never to be worn again. A piano and a guitar sitting there, collecting dust, probably never to be tuned again. A humpty-dumpty toy that fell down, lying in the lawn. It was like someone’s parents had died and they started packing-up the house, then gave up because there was too much stuff. They took what they wanted and left (there were no pictures on the walls). Then someone ransacked the house, making it even harder for someone to go through and figure out if anything was worth keeping. Some of the items were obsolete, but most of the items were just clutter.
What’s the point of gathering all this stuff if, when you die, nobody will want it?
Maybe you try to avoid buying new things as much as possible. Maybe you exclusively shop at second hand stores. Maybe you recycle everything you can. Well, good for you! But you’re surrounded by a culture that doesn’t. Your efforts matter as much as a singular raindrop attempting to raise ocean levels.
Does removing one brick cripple the entire building? Probably not. If a few bricks are removed the building will become drafty, the secluded inside forced to feel winds of the outside world. If enough bricks are removed from the key points, the building will collapse.
Given a few decades, the temperatures will have increased enough and the oceans will have risen enough that chaotic weather will wipe out the building. So why bother falling out of the wall, falling out of the capitalistic building to be uncomfortable? Individual efforts don’t go far.
Economic incentives.
The climate crisis was created by economic incentive and so the solution must be created by economic incentive. There are three means of dealing with the climate crisis: mitigation, geoengineering, and adaptation.
Mitigation is reducing greenhouse gas emissions through individual actions. Consumers use less gasoline. Consumers buy less products. Consumers take shorter showers and buy LED light bulbs. Consumers should recycle their plastic water bottles. Mitigation is the strategy Corporate America has been using for decades, telling us that the solution to the climate crisis is in our hands. But it’s been decades, and not much good has come from mitigation. Most things labeled with the “recycle” logo have a very small chance of being recycled.
Geoengineering is where humans intentionally alter the Earth’s physical environment in order to slow down the acceleration of climate change. Think of volcanoes spewing dust into the sky, reducing the amount of sunlight that can reach the surface. Something like that, but on purpose. Kind of ridiculous, right? Not really. There are over 90,000 dams in the United States. Rivers don’t exist anymore. We might as well alter the air. What damage will result? Who knows. But geoengineering is more and more likely to happen because it’s what we’ve done before and humans are creatures of habit.
Adaption is where humans alter their economy to the changing environment. Build a bunch of dikes to prevent water from flooding Miami and New Orleans and New York City. Find crops that flourish in water. Use a ton of air conditioner. Still use lots of gasoline. Still buy lots of single-use products. Accommodating Corporate America, like Corporate America has accommodated every need we have. And then made up problems that we “needed” solutions for.
The likelihood is that combating the climate crisis will involve a combination of mitigation, geoengineering, and adaptation. A proposed solution involves creating an overall cap on the amount of carbon that can be emitted and giving different producers a set share of that carbon. Producers then trade or buy and sell those shares with each other, so that some can emit more than others without going over the capacity.
Corporate America and green-washing.
Corporate America keeps claiming to be a part of the solution. Corporate America is falsely marketing it’s products as being environmentally friendly so that people will be more encouraged to buy its products. This is known as “green washing.”
As one of the many examples, Poland Spring water bottles claim to be more environmentally friendly because the bottles contain less plastic in their lids then the bottles used to. Except using less material to make a product is cheaper for production. And 8% of plastics are actually recycled. And plastic takes a long time to break down: several centuries, actually. All the plastic produced in the 1950’s is still here. A lot of it is swirling around in gyres in the ocean, taking up millions of acres of surface area, clogging up aquatic life, breaking down into micro bits of plastic. Plastic has infiltrated everything. The average human — that means you — consumes a debit card’s worth of micro plastic every week. The irony is, plastic was created as a supplement for natural resources so that less natural resources (wood, glass, etc.) would be used. Good intentions, people just didn’t consider how long plastic would extend its welcome.
Corporate America has said “sorry” so many times, but it doesn’t change its actions. It’s like a New Year’s resolution it made but never had any intention of sustaining; a year-long gym membership it used for one day then gave up because it got sore. Well, hard work is hard. Change is hard.
Americans verses the rest of the world.
Corporate America continues to support governors who vote for environmental-damaging policies. Us educated middle class persons go about our days, thinking there is not much we can do. And that’s a real tragedy; the people who are aware of the problem and understand the problem do not think they can do anything to solve the problem. We don’t believe in the good of humanity. We see the devil and the angel sitting on the corporation’s shoulders and know which one it is going to listen to.
As Americans, we live in a large mansion, blocking ourselves off from the rest of the world, lapping up luxury. In terms of international media, the world knows about the U.S. but the U.S. knows little of the world. The world is invested in what goes on inside the mansion. Americans are not as interested in the world outside it’s mansion walls, and would rather talk about itself. Even the poorest Americans are better off than the majority of people in the world.
So, when the effects of the climate crisis become obvious, Americans will be okay. Other parts of the world will not. Other parts of the world cannot afford the adaption method. You, an educated middle class person who is aware of the situation, do not have as much personally invested in the effects of the climate crisis because you will not be as affected by the climate crisis as much as other persons of the world. If you happen to be a white educated middle class person, you are already better off than persons of color and persons of lower income in America. Because you do not have to actively worry, you do not actively worry.
But that’s not morally right.
What the average citizen can do.
You can educate other people like yourself. You can use your relative position of power: corporations are more likely to listen to you then all the people with less buying power than you. And if there is enough demand and pressure for corporations to be more environmentally friendly, laws will be created forcing corporations to be more environmentally friendly.
In response to Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring — a book tracing the toxic effects of DDT usage from its initial spray to weakening bird eggs — and in response to events like Love Canal in Buffalo — a failed canal filled in with toxic waste, then sold to a school board, resulting in a lot of sick kids and families — and the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland catching fire from factory pollution — which was a regular occurance — a series of laws were passed in the 1970’s to help regulate environmental pollution. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed, which requires an environmental assessment and the issuing of an environmental impact statement before any infrastructure (buildings, roads, parkland purchases, etc.) is approved and implemented. This means projects affecting the environment in any way have to be examined for their consequences on the environment; if the environmental costs of a project outweigh the benefits, it is a lot harder to get a project approved.
Monumental acts, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act were also passed in the early ‘70s. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created. The EPA is broken into departments focusing on different topics — water, chemical safety, pollution prevention, air quality, etc. — and enforces laws and regulations regarding those topics. Because these laws and regulations have been in place for half a century, the United States is significantly cleaner than it used to be. Nature rejuvenates itself.
Well, that’s great and all, but there’s still a climate crisis happening and we are getting closer and closer to the point of projected disaster — when the average global temperature has increased by 2 degrees celsius. So, what can we do now?
Vote. Pay attention to what politicians you vote for. Pay attention to whether or not those politicians prioritize the environment. Try to get the law to enforce greenhouse gas reduction. A capitalist economy won’t.
In terms of leadership, the U.S. is in a good place right now. In an executive order in January 2021, President Joe Biden re-signed the United States into the Paris Agreement, which is an accord 197 countries signed on to, pledging to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in a sustainable manner. That is amazing; last year under a different president, the U.S. was one of three countries not signed to the accord, despite being one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters and one of the most culturally influential countries in the world. Biden has also spoken of plans to produce clean electric energy in the United States, along with other means of holding up America’s pledge. The wind and current are currently in our favor. Let’s paddle as fast as we can while we can.
Now, I get it, because I’m guilty of tuning out for the same reasons; paying attention to politics and policies is not an exciting or interesting thing — especially for Americans, who collectively spend a sickening amount on entertainment. But we have to pay attention. We have to put in the work. We cannot pathetically play with excuses and distractions, living life in air conditioned mansions, never bothering to go outside and feel the heat of the real world.
Will average citizens be able to change the systematic success of corporate environmental damage? Will we be able to slow down the rising of Earth’s temperature in time? Knowing corporate priorities, human priorities, the need to focus on the easily imaginable timeline, I think we probably won’t. But no one knows.
But when your grandchildren are affected by the consequences of neglecting life’s home, when they look at you and ask you how it happened and if you tried to slow it down, will you tell them you were powerless?
When they ask you if you tried, wouldn’t you like to say you tried?
