In my mind, I am the most sustainable person on the planet. I think that human life isn't really all that special, we are just one part of the world and we have taken rather more than our fair share of it. I am one of those people who could be told, "well why don't you just kill yourself and disburden the world!"
Well, yes, I suppose that would be one effect of suicide; but that sort of response really isn't thinking of the other effects that would ripple out from that. I ain't a cult leader that could voluntarily take out a few million with me, which may make a positive effect; but then, I still cannot say what would happen in the future from such an action. If we take war to judge, after mass genocide, the human population rebounds further than it was.
Still, there are other hypocrisies in my life as there are in any other crazy environmentalists. I believe that it is pretty much impossible to live perfectly in the world we have created. If everyone were like me, that would be so and we would quickly reform and the more we did, the more would be possible.
Not to say I am perfect. In my mind, I am sustainable; but in reality, there are many people doing
much better than me. I have paid for skiing twice this year (used ski lifts four times) which is very energy intensive. It probably out-balances all the lights I have turned off in the last 20 years. I know in my heart and mind that it is important to publicize your beliefs and ideas because the collective effect of 10 (to 10 thousand) people is going to dwarf any great effect one can have on their own; but I am most of the time silent on what matters. Justifying to myself that they wouldn't listen anyway. Sometimes, this is a good excuse: the reaction to preaching what I think is good would push more bad behavior. Sometimes it wont, that is when it should be stated, even if it wont to good either. I have had in my mind plans for improving the insulation and sustainability of the shitty little house I rent, but haven't gotten past 2% of my plans.
But there are plenty of things I can be proud of. I never buy new clothing. Much of what I wear can come from a dumpster. I save my clothes from the land fill which I can only see as a positive, no matter what they are made out of. I really never buy anything new besides food. Mainly because I don't want to support the processes which made it. This could have its draw-backs, however. There are people making an effort to improve production systems and without capital support they will never get anywhere.
I spend a good 30-50% of my income at the local food store and buy good, healthy, sustainable food. It only amounts to about 10 or 20% of the food I eat, though, so it is not quite the impact it seems. I do not grow anything of my own, I did get about 7 peas last summer, but most of my food is still the vilified GMO slop. I am still proud, however, to say that I do pretty much as good as I can. 30-50% of income is pretty painful on the ol' wallet, but it doesn't have much else to do.
I hardly ever drive; I always use the bus, walk, or ride a bike. This is what I am happiest about because cars themselves are my biggest peeve. I abhor them. I don't like the roads that have been carved into the earth for them; I don't like the cities which donate more than half their land to them; I hate their fumes and their fuel; I hate how lazy they make people. Most people I talk to cannot even imagine how to get from A to B without one, especially if they have kids or need to haul something. I use a snowboard on wheels as a truck. I will never own a car; that is a hypocrasy I will not have.
But I do drive a car once in a while; always a carpool, but I hate myself as much as any driver at these times. I ride in someones car periodically. Usually to be social, but I still cannot abide it. This is one "mini-hypocrisy" which I cannot endure the taste of.
Hypocrisy sucks. I'm hypocritical of how perfect I am, how much I turn people off of my mission by being too militant, trying to learn so much that I learn nothing. However, I think it is better than the alternative: It is better to have hypocrisies against your values than to not have any values at all. I cannot come near living to my standard, but that is because my standard is unbelievably high. I would rather fail to reach it than lower it. Until I utterly despair at being a good person because I've never even touched the bar, let alone vaulted it... 'twould be better to lower it at that point, I suppose.
I must always be ready and willing to change something in my life and am always striving to be better. Still, I backslide from time to time. I am most interested in improving energy use, reducing fuel use, and improving food intake. As the snow melts, I want to change my source of food as much as the season will allow.
I think there is an argument to improving one area of your life in order to sin in another. Pragmatically, it is like being neutral. That is what my intelligence says. My wisdom and spirit say that this is a misguided way to think. "Malicious Restoration" I have heard it called. It is like the carbon credit, which I have heard this story for:
In a village, there are three families, the Albertsons, the Basks, and the Carpintors. The Albertsons are picturesque: they are happy, eat their meals together, read together, play together. They have friends outside the house and a strong marriage inside the house. They are completely faithful to each other.
The Basks are not quite so happy, though they seem so. They also eat together and have happy, smart childeren who have good healthy friendships. The marriage in this house is also strong, and based on fidelity, but the husband and the wife secretly covet other people.
Suppose there is a husband and wife with a good marriage. They value fidelity and are happy with each other. Their neighbors also value fidelity: it is what cements their marriage together, the idea that they are faithful to each other.
The Carpintors are an unhealthy, broken down family. Their children have friends outside the house, but it is more a "gang" than good friends, they never eat together, hardly see each other, and have extramarital sex all the time; but each partner in the marriage hardly even care about it.
Eventually, the Basks learn about each others yearnings and they discuss it like overly-rational people. The both agree that fidelity is important in a marriage, and that they want to stay married (they still love each other), but they both really, really want to satisfy their extramarital urges. So they come up with a plan: they will pay other people to be fidelious. One of them approaches the Albertsons and pays them to remain faithful to each other, which does nothing but give the Albertsons an extra source of income. The other approaches the Carpintors.
This does have an effect. The Carpintors remain faithful, paid well by the Basks. Their lives begin to improve, they begin to appreciate each other as they do less cavorting about the town. Home more often, they see their children more often who in turn begin to feel more loved.
But what happens to the Basks? It is possible that they remain good people though out and do not simply trade places with the Carpintors (after all, fidelity is not a universally needed aspect of a good marriage and loving family) But they are sacrificing their values (some more than others - at least one of them improved another's life)
Is this worth it? Are their actions justified? This story can be told more as a joke (and should be, too), but with a slower (overly-rational) contemplation of it, we can see that there are some merits to it...
But it is utterly stupid. If you are improving one area of your life in order to sin in another, then you are still being sinful. If you are good in an area that is easy for you but not taking the challenge of improving the area of your life that is difficult, are you really accomplishing very much? Do you have anything to brag about? It may be easier to convince someone to begin being environmental if you convince them that
they need not live like a pauper, but in reality the "poorer" on lives, the less they use and need...
'Course, I don't think one needs to live really hard lives to reach sustainability or even begin rejuvenating their environment; hunter-gatherers only worked about 10 hours a day... They just had to abstain from sex and procreation if the environment could sustain another person. And the weaker people died of disease and genetic inferiority. Harsh.
Perhaps we can support our intelligence rather than our bodies. Provide health care so that people can live long and healthy lives with weak, ill-performing bodies (like mine). Be smart and give health care to people. But I do not think we can indiscriminately procreate to infinity and sustain our population. That is the hard choice to make.
I have been thinking that perhaps that is what has gotten us into the mess we are in now. No one really knows why anyone chose to be an agriculture rather than hunting and gathering. Why that original choice was made because it was so much harder and less healthy.
But that is another essay. I should probably try and make that one more like an Anthropology paper.
