A few weeks ago I dropped in on a friend who works at the local university. Among other things, he's developing a course on sustainable business and I have to admit that while discussing this I was vaguely angling for a bit of work. When a similar course had been run in the past the emphasis largely seemed to be on the promotional advantages of being seen to be green and the scientific content was minimal. As a matter of principle I'd like people to be able to make their own decisions based on sound, if limited, science and not have to rely on being told what to do by others, or at least be able to tell if the advice makes sense. So what I'd like to be asked to do is provide the basic science bit.
During the conversation my friend remarked that he and a colleague had been talking about me and I discovered that they referred to me, I presume in jest, as "Mad Andy". Now there are all sorts of ways of being mad and I suspect that part of being mad often lies in not recognising that you are. So, putting aside the aspects of my own behaviour that may be mad but which I don't recognise, I can only assume that they are referring to my persistent environmentalism.
Everyone who saw the King in his new clothes knew that he was naked. The people I speak to "know" that we're building up to a major ecological and environmental crisis. They've seen the pictures of Earth from space and know that the planet has finite resources. They've seen David Attenborough on the telly and know that we're in the middle of a period of mass extinctions. They know that the weather is becoming more extreme and know that its more than likely that this is down to us, but for some reason, or reasons, they resist the consequences of this knowledge. The best thing about Al Gore's film was its title, it really is "an inconvenient truth" and just as it was inconvenient, or perhaps even personally fatal, to point out that the King wasn't actually wearing any clothes so it is inconvenient to keep pointing out that we cannot go on as we are.
So, I end up playing the role of the little boy and fail to spot, or take heed of, the social signals that say "Enough already, we're just trying to get on with our lives and, for the time being at least, the most important thing is having enough money. All this environmental stuff makes us uncomfortable so please leave it out". But, in the fine tradition of the fool (who was the one person licensed to speak truth to power) I keep on keeping on.
So, I may not be mad but I probably am a fool to go so consistently against the vast majority who are out there swimming with crocodiles (i.e in denial)
Ha! Mad Andy, eh? Sounds better than "Foolish Andy", or "Andy the Unforgiving Eco-Puritan", I suppose. Not that you're any of those, of course! I expect they mean it in the ironic manner of "Little John".
ReplyDeleteI think one's politics are defined by which way round you think it is: a). People need to be empowered before they feel able to change things, or b). People learn to feel empowered by trying to change things. I used to think (a), but now I think (b), as, I suspect, do you.
But how you persuade people that things can and must be changed is the political challenge our children will inherit. Damned if I know.
Watch that crocodile!
Mike the Idiot
On thinking about, it I suspect that it actually takes a bit of both but that a realistic sense of what's possible only comes about by trying. I've come across plenty of greenish folk who've though that if only everyone knew what they knew then we (i.e the they that isn't them) would do something about it. When they discover that this doesn't work they then feel disempowered and give up.
DeleteMeanwhile those with a true born sense of empowerment are busy exercising it in the defense of the status quo.