Wednesday, October 14, 2015

History Knocked on Your Door, Did You Answer: Klein’s This Changes Everything Part III


“I am part of the land.  I respect it, I love it and I don’t treat it as a useless object, as if I want to take something out of it and then the rest will be waste. Because I want to live here this year, next year, and to hand it down to the generations to come. In contrast, Eldorado, and any other mining company, they want to devour the land, to plunder it, to take away what is most precious for themselves.” And then they would leave behind, she said, “a huge chemical bomb for all mankind and nature.” –Melachrinin Liakou, activist against the gold mine in Halkidiki, Greece, quoted in This Changes Everything (p 342)



There is a lot about this book that hits home and that is very moving.  Section III is my favorite section—enlightening, motivating, and food for thought—as with all the books we’ve read so far (we are now half-way done), I like the ending.  Klein makes an argument that others have made, that love can save a place and inspire regular people to become activists. Janisse Ray makes a similar argument in Ecology of a Cracker Childhood when she returns to her childhood home amid the pines of southern Georgia—that land was the place where her bones were quite literally built, and that connection to and love of place, fractured as it is by human logging and development, means something.  Yet, so many of our lives become separated from the ecosystems that, at least in part, made us. I wonder if, imbedded in the return to local economies, is a philosophy of philopatry--returning after an education elsewhere back to the natal pond.  It certainly seems that Indigenous people have been a largely shining example of how connection to place emboldens their communities to stand up to big oil and coal.  Many of us have lost that connection to place—or are not fully aware of the ecosystem that was building our bones—or more likely, for the many ecosystems around the world that helped build our bones.  And we are so busy, that we are easily disconnected from the place around us. And as it is slowly chipped away at with new shopping centers, we will hardly notice.

One of the challenges of conservation crises is not only raising awareness about the important environmental issues, but inspiring or motivating the necessary changes in people’s behaviors or a change in their belief system.  When we started talking about science communication several years ago, it became clear that while we science-types are most comfortable offering “educational” outreach, changing people’s beliefs and behaviors is the key and that information alone may not be inspiring enough to alter entrenched beliefs or behaviors—it is no trivial task.  Even the people who make full time jobs out of raising awareness for health issues like smoking have a challenge in moving the behavioral response.  Dr. Valerie Ubbes at Miami U who is a health educator has said that in trying to educate the public through things like public service announcements (PSA), you know that one PSA will not cause people to stop smoking or eating sugar or to start buckling up or exercising. But, you are in it for the long-haul with each piece of information like a drip which eventually motivates change.  With climate change, we are out of time.  The drips have not worked and what is ahead is a flood (perhaps more inspiring?).  Klein’s book offers hope about how each one of us can contribute to making our small individual changes and also how we can be part of larger movements to end “taking without caretaking.”  Klein ends with the story of asking friends what she should ask Greece’s opposition party and someone suggested “Ask him: History knocked on your door, did you answer?”  I hope the answer is yes for each of us.  Klein has showed us where to start—anyone else ready for revolution? (Perhaps not this semester…I am weary, but perhaps that should not matter.)   


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