Save Eco Destinations

Have you asked yourself this—why people don’t care?

I  have.

Most often, I can only think that it is an issue of greed, selfishness, ignorance or—especially—outright denial (and greed).

We know that people in the South Pacific, such as the islands of Tuvalu, and other low-lying areas are living on land that is sinking (flooding really). Imagine sea water coming up to your knees, your hips…

Food can no longer grow, water is polluted, sewage systems are screwed, hygiene hazards are rampant, and ultimately people must be evacuated lest they die by drowning or other troubles. Elsewhere, droughts turn rich pasture turns into dead, barren land.

Already, 300,000 die yearly due to global warming (the vast majority of whom are women, by the way).

It is expected that millions of refugees will need places to go as global warming advances and water takes over the areas of Bangladesh, Calcutta, New York, Florida, and on and on.

So, this is enough to make people care, right? To get a Nalgene bottle and refill it daily instead of wasting myriad resources on purchasing pricy bottled water, to recycle instead of tossing cans in the garbage, to appreciate things more and be less wasteful, to become conscientious.

You’d think so.

So why isn’t it?

Language

Some people think it’s all in the language. The New York Times article claims that environmentalists worry the term “global warming” repels conservatives and others because they associate it with hippies and cutting spending.

The firm conducting the study suggested discussing “our deteriorating atmosphere” to make it, um, more universally relevant. I know, pathetic.

Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

Whatever. Language? If this is truly the case, it’s so funny I forgot to laugh—and chose to ram my head into the wall instead.

“We know why it’s lowest. When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.” – ecoAmerica

Oh no! Liberals!

Plus, screw global warming—it will only affect them.

Did I mention “ram my head into the wall”?

So we can’t say global warming, energy efficiency or the environment. Are you kidding me? Ridiculous.

Listen, if your problem is that anything that sounds liberal spooks you, you’ve got more problems than one—particularly when the issue at hand is as imminent as global warming. Swallow and digest it.

Make it personal

Perhaps (and this is my opinion) the point is making the issue clearly and directly relevant to everyone.

Whether it’s threatening that your favorite Caribbean hotel where you spend your ritzy summers will shut down due to flooding or that your beloved ski resort will shut down due to a lack of snow, that is, no matter what kind of selfish jerk you are, the answer lies in making the issue relevant to you.

It makes sense. Not everyone is the underdog type who cares about others because of justice. Most people need to be directly affected by something to even blink. And it really seems that it is most people who need to be shaken up out of their catatonic state.

Changes to make to drive others to change

(FYI: My thoughts are in parentheses.)

Instead of global warming, try climate change (hey, it wasn’t my idea).

Substitute energy efficiency with the purportedly more positive saving money for a more prosperous future.

Drop the environment in favor of the air we breathe, the water our children drink—which right here is an example of making the situation directly relevant to people. Put them in the picture.

Remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology – NYT

Switch environmentalists with conservationists (ooh, that feels sleazy).

Forget scientific arguments and stress common sense. (Listen, you need both.)

Use moral arguments—people need to feel guilty to get off their asses, it’s true.

A modest example:

As a conservationist, I urge you to consider saving money for a more prosperous future by turning off the tap when you brush your teeth to conserve water, leaving more for our children and their children to drink. It is our responsibility as Americans/Germans/Brazilians/etc. Think of your family and your friends. Climate change is something we can all collaborate to control through simple common sense.

Yeah, but let me tell you why I don’t like it. Because people should already be concerned and on the go. Because “climate change” sounds less severe than “global warming” (which, already, doesn’t sound critical enough). Because our priorities should lie on mitigating global warming instead of changing our rhetoric to make asshats care.

FYI, here’s a related article I just found while browsing for pictures:  Eco-semantics

Here you go. Now go call yourself a conservationist.

The forecast points to rising sea levels and frequent violent storms leading to flooding.

The Scilly Isles will be taken over by a meter-plus rise of sea water in this century. These isles are particularly vulnerable relative to the UK because they lay isolated, 28 mi. out in the Atlantic from the UK’s mainland.

The so-called Maldives of the Atlantic Ocean are surrounded by submerged islands already, a grim reminder of watery destruction to come. (These surrounding islands were invaded by rising sea levels within the past several centuries.) You can still find archaeological remains. What now constitute hilltops, though, used to stand much higher. How depressing. The Scilly Isles will be the next Tuvalu.

The plan now is mitigation. Personally, I think this shows denial and procrastination. What they should be working on are plans to move residents (11,000 households, folks) out onto higher land. They need to educate the Scilly Isles’ inhabitants about their options-what they can do with their savings, how they could move their belongings to their new homes, where they could establish themselves in the UK, and so on. I imagine that at least Britain, if not the whole UK, will offer these unfortunate people help.

“The bottom line is that we mustn’t bury our heads in the sand,” commented Andrew Davey, an expert on coastal matters for the National Trust.

Right: the sooner the better, so why aren’t they getting their asses in gear? It seems to me like they don’t want to freak people out-but they should! Maybe the very decision-makers are freaking out and they don’t even know it yet, hence the rampant denial and choice of mitigation over sensible action.

But really, if we’re ALL going to wait until the last minute to salvage refugees, we won’t be able to ask each other for help, because we’ll be too caught up helping those nearest us geographically, nationally, and so on. We’ll be donating money to campaigns aiding people in our own country, right? Desperate times lead to protecting your “own” and neglecting everyone else. In desperate times, we don’t think straight.

So why wait it out? Shit.

I went to college in Florida and my mother still lives there. I hated it. Every summer we were on high alert, and I was always paranoid about those damn hurricanes. And the more I learned about global warming, the more I realized Florida’s on its way out, especially if you live right on the coast as she does (that’s where my college is located too, which is depressing as well).

But when my mother wanted to buy new property and I suggested she consider moving somewhere like Chicago, she took me seriously-for about a minute. Her bad. I’m already out.

In college, I met a girl whose house got demolished in Miami by the category 5 Hurricane Andrew back in ’92. And what did her family do afterward? They rebuilt the house. I was baffled. It was so obvious to me that their move was simply stupid. The fact that you’ve always lived someplace doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life there, especially when it’s so risky.

There will be more hurricanes, you can be sure. And they are supposed to keep getting worse. What’s to think about? If you’re interested, here is a documentary about a family rebuilding its life in New Orleans post-Katrina.

As travel destinations, enjoy them while you can (Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Mexico, Cuba, and so on). If you live there, I’d start making plans to move on inland. But hey, maybe that’s just me-I like to live calmly year-round, no yearly, imminent death threats lurking in the shadows ready to attack. Power going out for weeks with 95F weather, general fear, no available flights out or gas to head the hell out of the danger zone. I don’t care how fun hurricane parties can be.

We had a category 2 or 3 in Miami some years back. Afterward, downtown looked like a war zone, shattered glass everywhere. Some buildings still haven’t replaced those windows.

And, oh, the beaches on the Gulf of Mexico are some of the most beautiful and placid I have ever seen. They are breathtaking. Sand like flour and water like a warm bubble bath (okay, without the bubbles).

And don’t even get me started about earthquakes (I’ve lived in California, too). I just don’t get why people make themselves suffer through natural disasters when they could avoid them altogether. Isn’t it worth the hassle? I think it is. (New Orleans is a port city, okay, but why do people in other lines of work choose to rebuild? It won’t be much of a tourist spot as natural disasters keep ravaging it.)

Links:

Anyway, read this article in the New Scientist–finally somebody is backing me up! Go Jeff Hecht, go!

Read a contentious debate here and a post-Katrina article in the Washington Post arguing against rebuilding here.

If you called in or emailed Argentine President Cristina Kirchner last week, you deserve an enthusiastic pat on the back: it worked!

Greenpeace reports that over 1,000 people harassed the government daily demanding the signed implementation of the Forest Law-and we got it. Things like this always make me smile, and wide.

Such efforts are crucial to fight deforestation and the resulting natural disasters such as the flooding in Tartagal, up in the northwestern province of Salta in Argentina, where thousands lost their homes to the violent infiltration of volumes of mud.

Deforestation is about destroying the fertility of soil, biodiversity, and leaving the soil useless to protect the land against intensive flooding (due to accelerated erosion) as it warps the natural regulation of river basins. Fighting it is, therefore, imperative to our planet-and our human and non-human community.

Meanwhile, Tartagal lays drowned in mud, with dead animals rotting in the streets, people missing, snakes everywhere, its waters polluted, and ravenous mosquitoes sucking the blood out of everyone in sight. As a bonus, people have to watch out for explosives in certain areas, as oil companies’ explosives were dragged out by the flood. Some explosives have fortunately been found and subsequently deactivated. Apparently, something as seemingly innocuous as a cell phone can trigger them.

The people in Tartagal are poor and humble, with nothing to spare and now nothing at all. The capitalist efforts to force oil out of the ground, tear down trees, and the ten million other atrocities they commit every second of every day make me want to puke.

Please take action however way you can to spread the word when you hear of something, and make your voice heard to demand change.

Always remember the wise Margaret Mead’s words: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

In the northwest of Argentina lays a province called Salta, a popular tourist spot, whose trees corporations love to chop down. Salta comprises many rich ecosystems-well, fewer and fewer ecosystems these days.

Currently, the city of Tartagal has been experiencing very destructive floods-since at least 2006, actually! Watch a video here . Every year Argentina gets a rerun, and in other provinces too, e.g. Tucumán (see picture above).

The 2006 flood is evidence that the deforestation of this region’s Argentine forests is a direct cause of these dismal consequences. Now thousands of people have lost their homes because some greedy corporate businessmen have sold their souls to desecrate the planet and fill their fat pockets with crisp dollar bills.

It’s 2009, and still there’s been no progress. There is no firm policy against the massacre of Salta’s forests. See, last year, 1.5 million Argentines stood up and helped create the Forest Law-which hasn’t been put into practice by the government. It’s a shame that with a woman-a minority-president, things remain the same as before. But hey: greed knows no sex, race, class, sexual orientation, or anything else, right? Dough is dough, and when you’re vile enough to rig an election to win the presidency, people can’t expect much…

Please tell the Argentine Government what you think and demand they stop Salta’s deforestation – stop the Forest Law boycott!! or, if you can speak a little Spanish and can spare a couple of bucks, speak up! Call the Red Greenpeace Phone Line at 0011-5411-4000-5580 Mondays through Fridays from 7AM to 3PM EST and tell President Cristina Kirchner to get her ass in gear about the Forest Law.