[Mb-civic] MUST READ: Watching as the world vanishes - Roxana
Robinson - Boston Globe Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Sun Jan 1 08:32:50 PST 2006
Watching as the world vanishes
By Roxana Robinson | January 1, 2006 | The Boston Globe
IT WAS SHAMEFUL, everyone agreed afterward, that no one did anything at
the time. Because people knew it was happening. There were reports,
early on. People saw things, near where it was happening. They knew.
Later, they said they hadn't known, really; they hadn't understood the
scale of it. They explained their reasons for doing nothing. They said
the government was responsible, there was nothing they could do.
Certainly the government was determined to carry out its plans, and
maybe people felt overwhelmed and helpless. Maybe this was a place where
the curves of ignorance, courage, and survival instinct intersected, to
exclude the possibility of action.
The affected population knew about it, of course, but they had no
political power, no voice. As they diminished in number, they became
increasingly less important, which seemed to validate what was
happening. How could they be important if they were gone?
Even the people who were distanced from it, and not in danger, knew
about it, but they did nothing either. Maybe they didn't believe what
they heard. Maybe they felt it did not threaten them, it was too far
away and too terrible. There are things too terrible to consider. If you
acknowledged their reality, you would be unable to function. And where
would we be, if we couldn't function?
The news has actually been coming in for decades -- from the field, from
eyewitnesses, from relief organizations. We can even see the evidence
ourselves -- it's happening near us, wherever we are -- but we don't
believe these accounts, even our own. We don't want to, because they are
too terrible to consider. We're afraid we won't be able to function. The
more tremendous a threat is, the harder it is to comprehend. As Raphael
Lemkin said in 1944, ''. . . reports which slip out from behind the
frontiers . . . are very often labelled as untrustworthy atrocity
stories, because they are so gruesome that people simply refuse to
believe them." What we're hearing is too frightening to believe.
The evidence is still growing, and growing worse, but we're still
resisting it. When the scientists grew more serious and more impassioned
about the situation, when they began giving numbers, offering proof,
asking for action, we decided that we no longer believed in science. We
distanced ourselves; we hoped we wouldn't be affected. The population at
risk is not our population, at least not right now, so we needn't do
anything right now. We might do something later. The government can do
something if there's a real crisis. We trust the government to take care
of us, to act responsibly. Believing this is easier than taking drastic
steps to stop what's happening, particularly since this government is
very much opposed to stopping what's happening. This government is very
much intent on pursuing its present course, which results, as a side
effect -- though the government would not acknowledge this, or even
comment on the fact that it is taking place -- in the complete
destruction of the affected population. The affected population is
one-half of all the species presently living on earth.
Fanaticism is a driving force here, as it often is behind great crimes.
This is a crime against nature, and this fanaticism is economic -- the
belief that money and profit should outweigh all other considerations,
including survival of the species. If we maintain our current rates of
consumption and environmental strategies, by the end of this century,
one-half of the species now alive on earth may be extinct. We don't know
what the specific effects will be, but we know they'll be extreme. We're
presiding over the greatest extermination of living species since the
end of the dinosaurs. We're eliminating habitat, reliable climate, fresh
water, clean air, and nourishment. We're imposing intolerable living
conditions on thousands of species. The current rate of extinctions is
thought to be at least 1,000 times higher than the natural level. Right
now, one-quarter of all mammals are endangered with extinction;
one-third of all species, animal and vegetable, may be gone by 2050.
It may not be evident to us, as we sit in our cubicles, at our laptops,
but we need these other species, even those that seem impossibly small
and remote. We need the Northern lapwing, the Scottish crossbill, the
king protea (South Africa's national flower), the albacore tuna, Boyd's
forest dragon (an Australian lizard) -- all of which are in dire
straits. We're interconnected to everything. The scrawniest weed in
Patagonia absorbs carbon dioxide, which poisons us, and produces oxygen,
which we breathe in New York or Houston. Plants provide air, food, and
medicine; every living being occupies a niche in the global mosaic.
Birds transport seeds and pollen; they destroy insect pests; they clean
our harbors and cities and landscapes. All living species perform
functions valuable to the ecosystem, to the planet, and to the people
who live on it. But species everywhere are being systematically deprived
of the possibility of life.
We know what we're doing. We hear the reports, the gruesome stories, but
we've decided just to wait and see. We think the scientists -- all of
them -- could be wrong. Maybe we'll just do nothing. Short-term
self-interest suggests that we do nothing right now. Why should we drive
slower cars because of the Scottish crossbill?
Cutting fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gases would save many
species from vanishing, but we're not committing ourselves to that
strategy. One hundred eighty-two nations ratified the Convention on
Biological Diversity; the United States -- largest producer of
greenhouse gases -- is the only industrial country that refused. We
didn't want to be subject to any regulation over our destruction of the
air, the water, the habitat, and the voiceless inhabitants of the earth.
Others agree. Many developing countries wanted nothing in the treaty
that might limit their freedom to exploit -- and destroy -- their
natural resources. So the treaty is neither very powerful or effective,
since almost everyone involved places short-term economic goals ahead of
the long-term health of the planet. Similar issues affect the Kyoto
Agreement. It seems we're all in this together, this destruction of
species. This is an international effort.
Do we not think we need a healthy planet? Do we think that the animals
dying all around us means nothing? That this wholesale destruction won't
affect us? Where are the birds, most common and vivid form of wildlife?
Intensive agriculture destroys hedges, woods, and wetlands that birds
need for feeding and nesting; toxic chemicals poison the pests and the
seed-bearing wild plants they need for food. Logging destroys whole
regions of habitat; industry pollutes air around the globe. The birds
can't build nests, they can't find food, they can't feed their young.
They're dying off. Migrating birds used to move in flocks of thousands.
Now they straggle past in groups of 20 or 30. Remember the passenger
pigeons? Once they darkened the entire sky, across the prairies; we
wiped them out in a few decades. We're watching life being extinguished
all around us.
The use of fossil fuels, and the resulting climate change, is wreaking
havoc everywhere. Monster storms, temperature spikes, and erratic,
destructive weather all take their toll on agriculture, construction,
transportation, and communication, as well as wildlife. Do we still
think we don't belong to the affected population? What if the group
we're destroying turns out to include our own? Don't we remember the
canary in the coal mine? The canaries are dropping like flies. Why are
we standing here, holding the cage?
Whom will we believe, if not these scientists -- experts in the field --
with their gruesome and alarmist facts? How long will we keep denying
the evidence? What will we say to our children, and their children, when
they learn about the beautiful, rich, and varied life on earth that we
were privileged to know? The fields of rippling grasses, the graceful
trees, the strange and marvelous wild creatures -- how will we explain
that we stood by and watched all this vanish? What kind of courage do we
need, to respond to what's happening?
And this time, there's no one else to blame. It's us.
Roxana Robinson is a novelist, most recently of ''A Perfect Stranger."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/01/watching_as_the_world_vanishes/
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