At lunch break my colleague expressed sorrow for the people who saved up money for a holiday and had to come home early because of hurricane Irma. Another colleague said yes, but they were lucky because she knows that some people weren't even able to book another flight-- they had to stay for the storm.
I frowned over my lunch and quietly said "yes, it is a shame for the rich people* who have gone on vacation. I think it's probably worse for the people who actually live there."
They immediately agreed, but it hit on a theme I had been thinking of for a few months.
I remember in middle school we learned about the rainforest in science class. The ongoing destruction of this delicate forest for more farmland. What they didn't teach us was that this farmland was used to grow crops that would feed livestock and that by eating meat we were contributing to the destruction of forest ecosystems. They also didn't teach us that Canada's forests are also continuously being cut down and burned for agriculture. Instead, they taught me that people in these almost imaginary far off lands were less educated than our class of 12 year olds. They were cutting down these precious forests because they didn't know any better.
By that age I knew enough about Canadian history to know that all the farmland around my school had once been a mature forest. It seemed that if we cut down forests in the past, that was okay, but people cutting down forests now was bad. And since all our forests were cut down a long time ago, we can no longer take any of the blame for ongoing climate change.
Last year I worked as an organic farm inspector. Before I go on, I want to point out that I do believe in organic farming and that all farming should be organic by default. Pouring poison directly on our shared planet and directly on the plants that feed us is frankly horrifying. But here is something problematic I discovered during the course of my work.
In order to avoid the three year transition phase for a conventional field to produce organic food** farmers were clearing forested land in order to plant their organic crop and earn certification in their first year. Because this land had never been farmed conventionally there was no need for a transition period.
This is the problem when ethics clash with capitalism. Farmers are business people. They want more money for the business. That forest is not generating any income, we need to downsize the parts of the business that do not generate income and expand into new product lines that do. Hence, cut down the forest to produce organic buckwheat, hemp, corn, soybeans. Of course, this goes against the philosophy of organics, but it is hugely wound in our society's way of perceiving money as Good above all else. We worship the thing that makes us slaves.
Blaming people across the world for practices we ourselves perform, and then feeling sympathy for our own when natural disasters (exacerbated by our thirst for carbon and our destruction of perennial vegetation) is all part of the same problem. We see Us as something different than Them. We are all humans that share one planet. If we could do away with borders, maybe we could see that more clearly. What affects one person in our global community affects us all.
It can be overwhelming as an individual to realize our way of life is being attacked by capitalism and climate change from all directions, and yet we do have power to change things. Want to fight back against capitalism? Stop consuming more than what you need. Want to reduce your impact on the earth? Stop participating in practices that are known to contribute to climate change. In the meantime, we need to stop blaming the Other and start holding ourselves and our neighbours and our communities accountable for what we have the power to change.
*I know that not everyone who goes on holiday is rich from the lens of someone who lives in Canada. Compared to their neighbours they may not consider themselves rich, but compared to the global community, they are.
**Farmers want to avoid this transition period as the first years of transition have lower yields and as the crop is still considered conventional, they cannot demand the higher prices that make organic production competitive.
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