My inbox has steadily been filling up for weeks with press releases about “sustainable” products. The media is highlighting, oh, I don’t know, beach cleanups and online thrift shopping and organic mattresses. Every last company is talking about how environmentally conscious they are and — really? Apple? Come on, you’re designed for obsolescence.
Guys, I’m tired. I am drowning in greenwashing. We are presented environmental choices which are always, always more expensive and create a new class of moral have and have-nots. And this one day, Earth Day. They celebrate and highlight and spotlight and unplug and then it’s all normal plastic and “consumer choice” the rest of the days.
Here’s what I’d like to see in my perfect green world–and it’s all interconnected: Truly sustainable, affordable products made in eco-friendly ways that are *the* option, not *an* option; fair pay and safe labor practices across the board; strong government policy at all levels to incentivize better environmental operations for companies large and small. We need to make sustainability NORMAL, not optional, not optical.
When we talk about protecting the earth, we are really talking about protecting human life and health. It is precious, we’ve especially seen this in the past year with so many deaths caused by obscure and obvious transmissions of Covid. Black and brown and poor folks worldwide disproportionately field the brunt of contagious diseases, as well as our Wal-Mart impulse-buy T-shirts, our spiral-cut hams, our needless commutes.
I think about what my impact on the planet is every single day. Sometimes I am successful in my choices, but often I am not. [This is the part where I’m acknowledging just how much privilege I have–a middle class problem, to be sure.] I have a 4WD car because I have a home in the mountains, where the snow and ice are no joke. To lease or buy a hybrid model was impossible for me financially. So I traded my safety for shitty gas mileage with a non-hybrid model, and I feel badly about that every day. I simply couldn’t afford a more environmental car, and yet, I understand that other people don’t have the luxury of deciding which car to buy. I want our systems to be better. I want a no-brainer sustainable lifestyle available to all of us, no matter where we are on the socio-economic scale.
I feel like I’m howling alone at the moon on this one. When I worked in an office, I was the weird one, flagging the plastic spoons in the cafeteria and begging for compostable or reusable options, posting pictures of bird carcasses that swallowed plastic lighters and beer-can holders. That shouldn’t have been me. That should have been a leadership decision and commitment to sustainability on every level of operation in that building, down to the fucking spoons. And yet, it’s not choosing the odd spoon or throwing out diapers that’s the issue here. It’s mass creation and consumption. Putting the burden on consumers is unrealistic and unfair.
I have a lot of mixed feelings on capitalism. I work hard and I like having a service and product to sell. I like having property to give people a place to live and to vacation, and owning a home feels like a safety net to me. I like making money and saving it and spending it and giving it away. But also, I’m appalled that unchecked capitalism considers humans mere tools to create more wealth for the very few, that “it will cost more for the consumer/our shareholders” is a valid reason for not pursuing the sustainable, long-game option. I don’t see how we can keep up our systems as they are as we break the backs of the people who make it possible. It is unconscionable that health care is irrationally tied to jobs (creating more haves and have-nots), that not everyone has a place to live, that our tax money doesn’t protect the most vulnerable among us. We aren’t rioting in the streets now for the planet because we have more pressing issues to talk about–specifically, rape and murder at the hands of white men. The decline of the earth as we know it is a different kind of important, but it’s all connected. (Side note: White men, get your shit together and get your dudes in line.)
Dutch Elm disease is caused by a Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, a savage fungus, and is spread by bark beetles who feed from tree to tree. The beetles (and the fungus) will eventually kill their own homes. Generally, they will move on to find another one. We are the fungus and the beetle here, we are the frog boiling slowly, we are the half-dead canary in the coal mine. Why would we destroy our home, knowing that there’s nowhere else we can go?