Deep Green Thoughts, Pt V

I tend to digress on the subject of environmental “ethics” and how we should act as human beings, because it’s such a broad, complex topic. I’m therefore going to back up a little and return to this idea of clean air vs. polluted air and the relative concepts of good and bad.

Really, you could debate the existence of good and bad for centuries and not come to any conclusions. This is why we have philosophy. There’s nothing wrong with exploring the concepts, but when it comes to day to day actions, some simplification is necessary. Therefore, for the duration of this blog, I’m going to define good as promoting human survival (and by extension, the survival of most of the species we share the planet with) and bad as the opposite, something that contributes, on the large scale, to the demise of the human species. If we go back to the question of whether pollution is bad, then by these standards we can say it depends on the scale: pollution on the scale of one group out of hundreds occasionally burning fields is fine, while pollution on the scale of hundreds of much larger groups burning fields is probably bad.

We can take it a step further and go back to the original question, of whether or not it is wrong for the general human population (of this society) to live the way we do. If survival is our goal, then it follows we’re not in great shape. Take a power plant. We all, myself included, contribute to the construction and maintenance of power plants. We use electricity, after all. In return, those of us unfortunate enough to live next to a power plant suffer disease and poor health, which certainly hinders our chances of survival. I use “our” because I did in fact grow up next to a power plant- and ended up with a severe case of asthma, as did the majority of the kids I grew up with. Moving to the Eastern Shore has alleviated the problem to some extent, but I haven’t grown out of it, as one trip to the city, especially on a hot day, will set it off and have me sucking on my inhaler for the rest of the day.

Honestly, this makes me really, really angry. And why not? My health has been compromised. I will never be able to breath entirely freely, without fear of having an asthma attack set off by some unknown pollutant. And I’m not the only one, by any means, nor have I suffered much compared to the millions of other people on the planet compromised by human activities- look at the people of some parts of China, unable to go outside on certain days because of the acid rain. Or the devastation exposed by Katrina- thousands of people affected by living too near the industrial district, and thousands more put out of home and life because we, humans, destroyed the buffers (wetlands) that prevented tidal surges from destroying the coastland by building a city over them (not to mention the potential link between global warming and severe storms).

Why aren’t we ALL ragingly pissed off?

Well, it’s possible because we’re all the culprits. Who do you target when you get pissed about a power plant? Yourself? That not only won’t get you anywhere, but it’s counterproductive. There are plenty of direct targets, plenty of people who, whether entirely conscious of the consequences of their actions or not, still figuratively pulled the trigger. Or you could choose not to participate at all, which is hellishly difficult and usually doesn’t do much to change the fact that the majority of human activities are not only killing most of the other species on the planet, but are killing us in the process.

There are other ways. Really, though, the important thing- and the reason behind this long series of posts- is for you to work out for yourself what you hold dear. Define that, and then define good and bad, and what you are willing to risk to protect those things you hold dear. Look at the costs- not the monetary costs, but the true costs- and ask what electricity is really worth. What is beef worth? What is a housing development on top of a wetland worth? How many lives are worth a light that comes on at the flick of a switch?

Answer those questions, and you’ll be well on your way to your own system of ethics.