“We weren’t,
obviously, going to outspend them [Exxon-Mobil, the Koch brothers, and Peabody
Energy]. We would need to find other currencies to work in—passion, spirit,
creativity. We’d probably have to put our bodies on the line. But what we lacked in cash, we could make up
in numbers—that’s what organizing was about. If enough bees could fill a
fifty-gallon drum with honey, it was worth a try.” P. 204
Oil and Honey offers
an interesting perspective on how a movement is built to address a societal
need when current policies and government fail on their own. The Climate
Movement has used civil disobedience to garner wider awareness for the problems
at hand and our failure to sort it out.
350.org has been creative and relentless in their activities and protests,
and through this effort of many, they have had significant impacts. If they were bees, they would have been filling
the supers (if that’s the right name for bit of the hive needed to collect more
honey). I have great admiration for the
way they have created this movement—and I applaud their efforts.
But…and this is part of the little tete-a-tete I’ve
been having with myself while reading and admiring the Climate Change effort,
as I feel McKibben beckoning us all to join the march…what if you are more of a
carpenter bee than a honey bee (honey bees are after all non-native in the
Americas...oh wait, I'm not native either!). Carpenter bees are solitary,
creating their homes in wood, pollinating and nectar collecting—ecologically,
valuable. McKibben himself would perhaps
argue he too is more of a carpenter bee, but there he is riding around in buses
for days on end with other worker bees—and he suggests that if he can, we all can,
because this is a mission we all must be on board with to ultimately win the
war against fossil fuels. Maybe McKibben
has overcome his species’ limitations…or maybe he really is a honey bee after
all (even queen bee!), but no matter what you do, most carpenter bees will not
make honey.
One thing we know from ecology is that ecosystem function is
dependent upon many parts of the system. We can each play a role in the system’s
function and our roles may be quite different.
Or, as Paul wrote to the people of Corinth, “For just as the body is one
and has many members, and all the members of the body though many, are one
body, so it is with Christ.” (The biblical folks figured out this dilemma long ago.) Maybe we are doing science, maybe we are writing
letters, maybe we are living off the land like Kirk the bee guy, or contemplating
other ways that we can be a part of the solution. Some of us are not going to be good cheering
(the best I can do is roll my eyes) or marching in a protest—even while seeing
that those efforts are important and can have the needed impact.
What I feel as I read Oil
and Honey is very thankful that the movement has Bill McKibben sometimes
acting as a queen bee and sometimes as a worker bee. Because he is following his heart on this
mission and because we can all support him in various ways, it means that
perhaps we can follow our own hearts more fully, which may mean we can hole up
in our solitary nest for some of the time while greeting each other warmly as
we go about our daily pollination. Or,
maybe, this just means I’m ecologically lazy and not willing to make the
sacrifices necessary to pick up the hive and start marching. I do not know the answer, but I think this
book asks us to figure out a role we can play and the cost we can pay in the
fight against fossil fuels to preserve biodiversity.
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