Silent Spring, Forgotten Summer
It has been a slightly wetter than usual spring, prompting Okanagites to complain that Summer will never come. While people I know demand to know what I am going to do to save the world or simply think the whole climate change is a load of bunk they still unilaterally complain about the weather. We went from severe water restrictions in Vernon in anticipation of drought conditions one one end of the valley to a dam bursting because of over saturation on the other...
Its either The Sky is Falling or - Nothing is Happening. Today on the CBC they had two 'experts' talking about peak oil, one who said that we all need to start hoarding food, the other saying the end will never come. In all of these debates no one is ever willing to be a moderate, as if trying to take a middle path between the two alternatives is the only option we never want to discuss.
If we are ever going to have any meaningful discussion/movement on the issues of climate change individuals and society need to stop this kind of "all or nothing" discourse. This type of debate simply distracts from any meaningful discussion that would actually require real meaningful commitment.
What have I done to save the world today? Nothing - one person cannot change the world, only themselves and their relationship to the world. It is through the process of our relationships with others and the world that people can effect any meaningful change, but in the meantime we can watch the revolution on Fox news.
To return to my original analogy, we all talk about how dry the valley is and how water is becoming a scarce resource, but when it comes in normal abundance, it causes disasters like catastrophic flooding. Our whole society is built upon the edge, about pushing the edge, and yet the only way it seems to work is by denying this truth. We are unprepared for drought, but we are even less prepared for rain.
At the end of he day it is not the water, how much or how little, but ourselves and or lack of foresight. (Tofino suffers from severe water restrictions and yet it is in the midst of a rain forest...because we have forgotten to invest in the infrastructure of our society.)
We have let our wells become full of silt, and rather than dig the silt up we complain that nature has forsaken us. Perhaps we need to look to our own reflections for the issues. But how can we...when there is no deep pool to ensnare us with our own reflections?
posted by M @ 10:10 am
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