The World is on Fire

Environmental consciousness is something I feel fairly strongly about. I believe quite firmly that the impacts of our actions are both invisible and cumulative, that small changes can cause big ones. I also think that environmental consciousness and social justice are fundamentally entwined.

The belief in environmental consciousness started early for me. It’s the one good thing about myself that I can credit to my mother; this is the part she got right. A fundamental appreciation for all living things was a part of it, as was a wonder in the beauty of nature. (Except for spiders, she’s terrified of spiders; although she did have us put them outside rather than squashing them). I was taught a respect for life, in any form and learned to find the function of a creature before judging it. Finding the function invariably led me to a positive judgment. Usefulness is next to godliness in my books.

Whenever I need to recharge my spiritual batteries, I head out into the river valley, or find a nice tree to climb. My childhood was primarily spent in the Mill Creek Ravine or up the giant elm in our back yard, book in hand. One of the most wild and vivid memories of my childhood is from the time I snuck outside during a giant windstorm, climbed to the very top of the highest tree in our yard, well above the height of our house. I hooked a leg around a branch and let my arms fly free as the wind tossed me around, the tree was my only anchor to the world. When I was eleven we moved away and I was heartbroken that we couldn’t take that tree with us; it was my childhood home.

In junior high, my academic challenge class was lucky to have a teacher who was passionate about environmentalism. This was in the late 80’s, when environmentalism was just starting to be trendy. We filmed a short documentary on pollution in our school area, focusing not just on waste and littering but water quality, landfills and industrial dumping. Starting in 1987, when I was 11, we organized and ran a recycling program in our school, which continues to operate to this day. We set up a system of cardboard boxes lined with plastic bags and an attached list of recyclables in every classroom in the school. We collected and sorted the items once a week and arranged for pickup and transfer to a larger recycling facility in the city. (For perspective, our city’s “blue box” residential recycling program began in 1988.)

My high school was right next to the river valley and many hours were spent exploring all of its depths and winding turns, all of the secret hidey-holes it held. Many lunch hours and missed classes were spent running and climbing there. I joined the hiking club and traveled the province wandering through tamarack in fall and mountains in the spring.

After some career confusion and program jumping, I ended up in NAIT’s Biological Sciences Technology program, in the Renewable Resources stream. I broadened my knowledge base about the world around us and the incredible creatures it contains. Meanwhile, I was a member of the Canoe racing team for two years, the cross-country skiing team for one and took a winter survival course.

My studies led me to a job with the Alberta Research Council doing field research as a range and forest technician. While the physical work could be tedious and repetitive, I enjoyed both the outdoor labour and the view into scientific enquiry on such a broad scale. I liked pondering the potential impacts of our research and the ways in which the accuracy of the experiment could be improved. For the next three summers I worked on this project while completing my BSc in Environmental and Conservation Sciences, which took the knowledge base I had developed at NAIT and expanded it to include information on how to manage populations, human impact on our world and the wider issues now facing us.

My eventual goal was to complete at least a Master’s and possibly a PhD (although I never would have admitted it at the time). I loved the idea of exploring possibilities through research. I loved my job in the bush but spent most of my time trying to find a way to improve the quality of the data collection. I wanted to be in charge of the project, rather than the grunt just following instructions. I wanted to fix the project. The only way that I could see to do that would be to get the schooling to be allowed to be in charge.

Unfortunately at this point I stalled out. I had the grades to get into the Master’s program, but didn’t have the references required. I’m not a networker or a social butterfly. I kept to minimal participation in class discussions and likely few of my professors realized who I was. I prefer to communicate in written form and that was very much what I did. Also, because of my unusual route through the program, I actually had some holes in my background that needed to be filled before proceeding to the graduate level. I spent the next couple of years remedying these issues while working to pay off my student loans. I geared up for a 2005 application to the Master’s in Renewable Resources program, but life proceeded without a regard for my academic goals and I finally realized that field research was not necessarily the best match for what I wanted my life to look like. I’ve been at an academic standstill ever since.

And now I’m just not sure what I want my life to look like. I’m still supporting many of my environmental beliefs at a basic level. I recycle vigilantly, and now that we have a house I will likely start composting again. Three times a year I organize a “clothes exchange” with my friends, which means that everyone brings over clothes that they’re not using anymore, we go through and take what we want, and the rest are donated to charities. With a like-minded coworker, I have put together many procedures at work to reduce waste and improve efficiency in the office, all of which save time, money and environmental cost (and which my bosses seem to generally oppose, for some unknown reason). We are also investigating natural alternatives to chemical solutions in every level of our lives. I’m just not really sure that these measures are enough for me anymore. While a small change is much better than no change, and can have a cumulative impact, I’m not convinced that I’m satisfied with these small scale actions.

This mental outburst was inspired by last night’s conversation with my high school friends, many of whom are in some way qualified for the discussion. (Jim has a PhD in genetics, Tara did her degree in biological sciences, Melissa’s background is in forestry, and mine is in environmental science.) The discussion was ignited by a question about hybrid vehicles and whether they really reduce our environmental footprint. The heat spread to the justified paranoia that big business is suppressing accurate research in favor of monetary gain, and was in full blaze by the time we reached the idea that global environmentalism is being used to further suppress the advancement of developing countries. The debate stirred up those old fires for me, ones that had burned out their fuel until only smoldering embers remained.

While I sit here and ponder these issues, with my good intentions and my small actions, in my warm house and my comfortable life, I have to wonder if I’m just fooling myself. I have a sinking feeling that I’m a part of the problem and that all of my small measures only really serve to make me feel better about my selfish actions. The world is on fire and I'm standing on the sidelines with splinters in my fingers just spitting at the flames.