Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s along with the big hair, big shoulder pads, leg warmers, and neon, followed by grunge rock, there was a resurgence of environmental awareness. I say resurgence because the environmental movement was really launched in in 1962 with Rachel Carson’s book ‘Silent Spring’. Followed by the first Earth Day on 22nd of April 1970. The resurgence was partly fueled, I’m guessing, buy the realization that there was this gaping hole in the planet’s ozone layer. Not really a good thing if you want to keep damaging ultraviolet radiation out. Why would you want to do this? Well, it damages crops, leads to an increase in skin cancer, and an increase in cataract rates, according to the EPA website. Because I grew up during this time, I knew the hole was bad and it was because of radiation and skin cancer. I even knew that it was being caused, or we were told it was caused by chlorofluorocarbons. But it’s been a long time, so I looked it up.
I have a friend who lives in Australia and at one point I think we talked about how they had become a bit more environmentally conscious due to being closer to that ozone hole. And it makes sense. The sun seems much more intense there so if it’s already intense and blinding then that hole sitting over or near you well, it was probably a little disturbing. And yes, the sun is more intense there. My sunglasses were not near dark enough at times when I was there. And for that matter my friends were telling me that their daughters get sunburned in Australia but can go to someplace like Greece and they don’t get burnt.
A few things brought this to mind this recently. I was reminded by email that it’s time to renew my Surfrider Foundation membership, that was one. Then, as I was doing swapping the music room into the art studio, I found a duplicate DVD of a concert and I had to play it to tell which one was the ‘bad’ DVD and which one was the good one so I could get rid of the bad one. It wasn’t the DVD itself that was the reminder it was who the concert was by. In my mind Olivia Newton-John, in addition to her cancer work, will always be associated with the environmental movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s. And then there was an article I read on the El Pais English site; it talks about a number of thresholds that according to scientists would have devastating effects if they were breached widely. One of the things the article does note is that we solved the ozone hole problem, pretty much at the last moment, but we solved it. And that makes me wonder, what happened? Not what happened that we solved it. What happened that we stopped.
What happened that that movement, that awareness lost momentum? We were concerned about not cutting down trees, about saving species of plants and animals, about protecting the rain forests, about the plight of dolphins and other sea creatures, about toxic waste, about hunger, and the plight of humans all over. What happened? Did we quit caring?
While it might feel like we did, I don’t think we actually quit caring. I think our care and concern for the only home we have right now became a victim to the almighty dollar and to demand. See demand has never been about meeting our needs as customers or even as people. Demand has always been about creating consumers. If it had been about meeting our needs as people, we’d have seen greater progress in sustainable living and health and clean air and clean water and social justice. Instead, we’ve seen life “improvements” in the form of making it “easier” for us to do more work in a shorter amount of time, so that companies don’t think they need to hire as many people to do the work as they used to. As an example. But those companies also need to see constant bottom-line growth in the form of profits. And so, they find ways to create demand of consumers.
And we as people, that have now been dehumanized into consumers, aren’t getting our demands, desires, or needs met. But we are told we are. Or we’re told that if we just purchase this more thing or bigger thing it will solve everything. Because, if they distract us from our dissatisfaction and disappointment maybe we’ll forget about passing laws that make them more responsible, or even insisting they have more sustainable practices. Because if we make them make quality products that will last beyond their first use then we won’t buy as much of their stuff.
But. There again, they’ve manufactured or induced demand. We are told that if we are really concerned for the environment that we just need to recycle more, buy more expensive “enviro-friendly” products, buy a hybrid car, get solar panels, eat organic, recycle more, and on and on. So that’s what we’ve tried to do. Community recycling programs were started, and recycling was added to our trash pickup so we could feel like we were/are making a difference. Even though they were halfhearted and mostly ineffective or insufficient, recycling programs remain in the form of curbside pickup and recycle bins.
For so long, we were told we were the problem. We created all the trash and waste, and we weren’t taking advantage of the recycling programs as evidenced by the fact that only some miniscule percentage of plastic was being recycled. And yet because we are considered consumers used to create demand for product that we may or may not need but the corporations need us to purchase to make more and more money, we are encouraged to keep…consuming. Which by its very nature creates more waste. But it’s our fault that we aren’t recycling.
The truth is, while we should do our part and reuse or recycle what we can, even if we all did that for everything, the problem would still exist because we as customers and people were not the primary problem. As they say, you don’t repair the fence after the cows get out, or if you prefer, you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. Or something like that. If you want to fix or prevent the problem, you have to start at the source. You don’t want to run out of toothpaste, you put the cap on it before it oozes out. You don’t want the cows to get out, you make sure the fence is in good shape before it’s breaks or falls down. You keep your house in order, so you don’t have to clean up the mess. You take care of things, so you don’t have to replace them. The difference is, while we can replace things, we can’t replace the Earth.
We are at the last minute, again. But unlike the ozone problem, this time we face multiple problems that we have to solve in this last minute. Sure, the most pressing is climate change. And yes, we know most of what has caused it. And no, it’s not a single class of chemical that we can make illegal to use and mandate it be immediately phased out. Even if it were, like with the ozone hole, it would still take time and we are at the last minute. Yes, we need to do our part. But our part isn’t rounding up the cows after they get out or trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube after it’s oozed all over the counter. Our part is helping to stop the problem at its source. Our part is to break the cycle of induced demand. Our part is to demand better. If they want our business, they need to do better business. And we need to insist on it. We need to show them we no longer have the appetite for just being sold the cheapest flashiest stuff that just breaks and gets replaced right away. We also have a part to play in showing lawmakers as well as corporations that we not only want the drastic change required, but we also have an appetite for it.
Making the changes needed to keep our planet livable is not going to be easy. It will require a lot of paradigms shifting. In some case it may look like ‘going backwards’ as older, sustainable methods are revisited and revived. We will resist, as we have been for many years. But we are at the last minute. And while I’m not keen to go back to the big hair and neon of the 1980’s or even the grunge of the 1990’s we could really stand to bring back whatever it was that let us band together to fix the hole in the ozone.
After the post about health care as an induced demand I really thought I was done with the topic of induced demand. But when I read about how many acres of the Amazon Rainforest has been cut down in the last few years just for cattle farming, I realized that the environmental movement had been a victim of it as well. Even if it is a demand/movement that has been unintentionally induced. And then I realized that what happened to that environmental movement of my youth was that it had been appropriated and turned into a demand that we don’t realize is a demand. Remember, when I said that the question was who was making money off us? Well, if we don’t have waste, pollution, a climate crisis, we don’t have a market for the clean-up, we don’t have a market for things that make the air less polluted, we don’t have a market for renewables. The crisis maybe was the result of short-sightedness, but it has turned into a manufactured demand that we perhaps could have avoided.
I’ve been working in the art studio more since I moved things around and I’ve got exciting news about the art store that I’ll be sharing this week. I’ll be posting it here and on Instagram and Facebook soon. I look forward to sharing it with you. Until then, peace.
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