From Cradle to Cradle by McDonough & Braungart:
It may be tempting to try to turn back the clock. Yet the next industrial revolution will not be about returning to some idealized, preindustrial state in which, for example, all textiles are made from natural fibers. Certainly at one time fabrics were biodegradable and unwanted pieces could be tossed on the ground to decompose or even be safely burned as fuel. But the natural materials to meet the needs of our current population do not and cannot exist. If serveral billion people want natural-fiber blue jeans dyed with natural dyes, humnanity will have to dedicate millions of acres to the cultivation of indigo and cotton plants just to satisfy the demand–acres that are needed to produce food. In addition, even “natural” products are not neccessarily healthy for humans and the environment. Indigo contains mutagens and, as typically grown in monocultural practices, depletes genetic diversity. You want to change your jeans, not your genes. Substances created by nature can be extremely toxic; they were not specifically designed by evolution for our use.
I think, when it comes to punk kids, there is a tendency to assume a position of moral superiority when it comes to environmental issues. I don’t own a car, I ride my bike. I don’t buy things, I re-use old ones. I recycle, I compost, I am part of the solution, not part of the problem. That is awesome. People should try to consume less. They should try to seperate their real desires and needs from those craftily cultivated by the capitalist media. It is still really, really unconscionable to drive a Hummer around. People should try to live their lives differently and try to minimize the negative effects that their existence produces. This weekend I spent some time on a farm where people had no sewage system, where they were trying to re-use materials, and to grow there own food. That’s great. My friends read about greywater systems and veggie-oil vehicles. Awesome.
But when it comes down to it, those solutions, those improvements, are viable and real because they are difficult and only adopted by a few people. I question whether some of the practices that make sense in our lives or the life of a small community would be possible or even desireable at a macro level.
As much as we want to seperate ourselves from the irresponsibility of the world at large, we are part of it. Our very existence is part of a trend of massive overpopulation that, in itself, is taking a horrible toll on the planet. With mass suicide or war or other catastrophe being unviable, and in my oppion, undesireable, we have to look at other options. Every job we have ever worked, every dollar we have spent, every dollar that has been spent on us by the government our our parents has had a fraction of it cycled into the social machinary that is quickly destroying the planet. The point is, however “good” we live our lives, it might not be enough to outweigh the toll of our existence.
To take a few steps from the consumption and pollution of our world and then wash our hands of it all is to ignore the part that we continue to play in the destruction of the natural world. It is fair to say that negligence is as great a sin as gluttony. We can’t be satisfied by being one step better than society at large, or two steps better – we must be always better as much as we can be. And it is not enough to live our lives better but we must struggle to try to make everything better. That means that we must acknowledge some of our impotence as (non) consumers or micro-producers and look to the need to engage and challenge large producers or governments or communities to do things differently. We must ackwnowledge that in order to do things differently, we cannot prioritize a result of destruction or change but must always struggle for what is possible and what is rational. We are not settling for one solution or another because we are not settling. period. ever.