Think Green

Alright, I loved Avatar. There I said it, and I mean it. The movie was a clever, overdone, parody, of the human incapability to live in harmony with their surroundings, and I appreciated it. Spoiler Alert: At the end of the film, the main character, Jake Sully, has shed his barbaric notions of nature existing for human exploitation and accepted his role as a piece of nature's interconnected web. The part that really struck me, however, that was he chose to leave behind his Earthly body in exchange for his Avatar of a Na'vi humanoid body, even though truly it was only a body and his mind had long been converted. It led me to wonder if there is something about being a human that is innately incompatible with environmentalism.

There are two components to understanding the incompatibility: self-interest and lack of foresight (what I affectionately refer to as the Wal-Mart couch phenomenon).

That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. -Aristotle

The first component was most famously describe in Garrett Hardin's, 1968 article, The Tragedy of the Commons. The article explains that when there is a resource open to the public, individuals acting rationally, will exploit and deplete the resource even when it is in no one's best interest for it to no longer exist. Central to the article is an example regarding a shared pasture where farmers allow their cows to graze but put so many cows in the pasture that it turns into a useless dust bowl. It remains rational however, to continue adding cows up to that point, because the individual receives all of the benefit of the additional cow being able to graze and the damage caused is shared by all. In the realm of climate change and the enormous atmospheric commons the only way to protect the common is to charge a fee at the door.

The political will to regulate the climate commons, however, must be driven by the public and with each successive snow storm, Americans are making my head spin. Climate change is a global, transgenerational issue that will require up front investment for long term gains. Humans are not wired for these issues. This is why Wal-Mart, and other stores like it, are so successful in my estimation. Americans would rather buy a new couch every five years for less than save up and make the initial investment in a couch whose frame has a lifetime guarantee and won't need to be reupholstered for twenty years. (Caveat: I realize that this hypothetical is problematic for low-income people but I use it as a broader metaphor for American foresight).

As explained in Al Gore's, Our Choice and well as in the recent study by the American Psychology Association, humans are wired for automatic responses to things such as snakes, cars speeding toward them and the smell of fire. These survival responses are unsuited to motivating the behaviors necessary to combat climate change (or health care reform, i.e. preventative medicine). It is unfortunate to think that local floods, droughts, storms and species extinction may be necessary for the survival response to kick in. But that may be the case and even more disconcerting is that current weather events are being misunderstood. The harsh winter which has dumped record snow totals on the mid-Atlantic has been used by climate change deniers to fuel skeptics. A parody of this logic was artfully done on a recent Daily Show episode. Weather is a collection of short term events while climate change is a general trend over years. The two must not be confused.

A recent article in the New York Times Magazine entitled "Is There an Ecological Unconscious?" , however, gives some hope to those of us who wish humanity would make a "Jake Sully" conversion without avatars. Being human may not be entirely incompatible with environmentalism after all. The article explains that humans are more at ease when they are

living sustainably and an emerging field of ecopsychologists believe that growing grief, despair and anxiety are consequences of dismissing deep-rooted ecological instincts." The article goes on to explain that over the past hundred years humans have engaged in a mind - body split, which gives them free reign to destroy the world. Humans, and Americans in particular, need to embrace the interdependence of our actions on the world around us. Further it needs to be made abundantly clear that investments today will save a great deal in the future as the environment is tied not only to our mind's ease but also our wallets.

The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions has compiled a useful guide on climate change communication. It is important to show Americans that it is in their self interest to combat climate change as well as mend the split between mind and nature and use it to propel the essential energy revolution. Change only emerges when the public demands it and therefore the first step must be fostering a change in mindset and a true understanding of climate change realities throughout the general public. This can no longer be a political issue. Americans react when matters are close to home. Arguments abound for combatting climate change (scientific, economic, moral, national security, ecological, psychological, allergies...) and one or a combination should reach even the most skeptical.