Go to "Don't Just Do Something; Sit There" Continued (time4)
DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING; SIT THERE Continued
3. The Future
In this section I explore our relationship with the future and how that relationship affects the environment
3.1 Our Paradoxical Relationship with the Future
We have a paradoxical relationship with the future. In some ways we appear to be extremely worried about it, yet in other ways we appear to be blind to the future we are creating.
Our concern with the future is shown in the personal lives of most people. Financial security is a major concern for many, and generally this means having such things as a job which pays as much as possible, a house and land, savings, investments, superannuation and insurance. The need for emotional security can motivate people in their search for a marriage partner and even in deciding to have children.
To some, our concern for the future appears excessive. According to Christopher Titmuss, "we live cut off from day-to-day life by focussing on future worries" (Titmuss 1995 p.154).
On a larger scale, environmentalists appear preoccupied with the future and want others to share this preoccupation. Members of the green movement have repeatedly warned about the serious consequences of continuing in the direction in which industrial society is taking us.
However, the warnings have by and large had little impact on behaviour, and powerholders in our society seem happy to disregard the cloud which looms over our future. The public is letting them get away with it, despite the fact that many surveys have revealed a deep concern for environmental issues among large numbers of people.
- Whatever the explanation, there is a general failure to respond to the environmental threats we face. This is what I mean when I write about our "disregard for the future" below.
3.2 The Future Wears New Clothes
Nothing about our attitude towards time is more astounding than our apparent disregard for the future. The threats of nuclear war and global ecological collapse have raised doubts about whether the human race -- and other species -- will survive the next century. Throughout its history, the humans have believed that their species would be on Earth indefinitely. Now, that faith in the future has been lost.
Joanna Macy and others have stressed the importance of this change. "I believe that this loss, felt at some level of consciousness by every one of us, regardless of political orientation, is the pivotal psychological reality of our time" (Macy 1991 p.5). Logic suggests that Macy is right, yet if one looks for a signs of this "pivotal psychological reality" in the behaviour of most people or governments, they simply aren't there.
"If the possible end to life as we know it is not newsworthy, then what is?"
In 1992, the international Union of Concerned Scientists issued a "Warning to Humanity" to alert the world to the dangers of continuing its environmentally irresponsible ways. The "Warning to Humanity" was signed by 1,500 of the world's most senior scientists and predicted that current environmental trends "may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know".
When the "Warning" was reported in the press, it caused hardly a ripple. The news agency, Associated Press, rated it a "low priority" story (Australian Associated Press 1993). If the possible end to life as we know it is not newsworthy, then what is?
The Union of Concerned Scientists' statement was perhaps the most authoritative of its kind, but it was far from being the only one. The Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World reports are perhaps the most respected reference on the ecological health of the planet. They make grim but convincing reading. In the 1993 Report, the authors state".. if our generation does not turn things around, our children may not have the option of doing so" (13rown, et al 1993 p.21).
In the 1991 State of the World Report, the authors warn: "Every major indicator shows a deterioration in natural systems: forests are shrinking, deserts are expanding, croplands are losing top soil, the stratospheric ozone layer continues to thin, the number of plant and animal species is diminishing, air pollution has reached health-threatening levels in hundreds of cities, and damage from acid rain can be seen on every continent" (Brown et al 1991 p.5).
Speaking at the Stein Festival in Canada in 1989, David Suzuki, perhaps the world's best known and most respected environmentalist, predicted that the planet's life support systems faced irreversible damage if current trends were not altered in the next ten years. That was six years ago.
It would not be difficult to add to the list of grim ecological predictions made by observers with impressive credentials. The green movement has repeatedly used dire predictions of the future in its attempt to influence peoples' behaviour. Yet on a global scale, the impact of these predictions on human behaviour has been negligible. If one looks beyond the superficial changes in rhetoric, it is clear that the actions of individuals, governments and multinationals have not changed enough to alter the course we are embarked upon.
Jonathon Schell (1982 p.3) says of nuclear weapons, "They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history". Despite their immeasurable importance, he says, "the world has declined, on the whole, to think about them very much. We have thus far failed to fashion, or to find within ourselves, an emotional or intellectual or political response to them" (ibid p.3). This failure, says Schell, "has itself been such a striking phenomenon that it has to be regarded as an extremely important part of the nuclear predicament as it has existed so far" (ibid p.4).
Writing in the New Scientist (1989), Bob Ralph cited an event recorded by Joseph Banks in 1770 when 1870, the HMS Endeavour sailed into Botany Bay for the first time. The Endeavour passed four Aboriginal canoes, in each of which a man was spearing fish. Banks wrote in his journal: "The ship passed within a quarter of a mile of them and yet they scarce lifted their eyes from their employment; I was almost inclined to think that attentive to their business and deafened by the noise of the surf they neither saw nor heard her [the Endeavour] go past them" (Ralph 1989 p.74).
A short time later, women and children in a small village on the shore looked at the ship and according to Banks, "expressed neither surprise nor concern". The four fishermen returned to the shore and totally ignored the Endeavour, anchored half a mile away. Were they failing to see something, asks Ralph, because it was "so far beyond their everyday experience" ?
We have our own Endeavour, suggests Ralph, sailing towards us, but like the aborigines, we appear unable or unwilling to take it in. Our Endeavour, according to Ralph, is the Earth's rapidly growing population. He could also have cited the threat of nuclear war, or the global ecological crisis. We appear to be averting our gaze from all these issues, and their impact on our future.
3.3 Why?
How does one explain this astounding disregard for the future? Christopher Titmuss, in his book The Green Buddha (1995), maintains that by and large, people are unable to take much account of the future even when their own interests are at stake. Each prediction about the future, he says, carries with it the implication that things are not yet bad enough to warrant a change. The green movement, he believes, should "end this game of prophecy" and concentrate on the state of the world here and now (ibid).
Certainly, there is no shortage of appalling environmental news about conditions right now, and certainly the green movement may have more success if it concentrates more on "the Here and Now", as Titmuss advocates. Yet, it is hard to see how a society can continue to be viable if it does not take account of the future.
"...if once we shook off our lethargy and fatigue and began to act, the climate would change"
I can see possible reasons for a lack of interest in the future. To me, they are not enough to explain this suicidal blindness, but for what they are worth, here they are.
One is that out of fear and despair, we believe we have no power to change the course we are embarked upon, and we therefore pretend that everything is okay.
Jonathon Schell's words about our response to the threat posed by nuclear weapons are equally applicable to our response to the threat of ecological collapse:
At present we do nothing. We look away. We remain calm. We are silent. We take refuge in the hope that the holocaust won't happen, and turn back to our individual concerns. We deny the truth that is all around us. Indifferent to the future of our kind, we grow indifferent to one another. We drift apart ...But if once we shook off our lethargy and began to act, the climate would change. Just as inertia produces despair-- despair often so deep that it doesn't know itself as despair-- arousal would give us success to hope [ibid p.320].
Perhaps our dread of what the future holds has rendered us unable to act -- like an animal blinded by the headlights of an approaching car.
Our fear of the future is generally repressed. "This repression tends to paralyze", writes Joanna Macy. "It builds a sense of isolation and powerlessness. Furthermore, it fosters resistance to painful, but essential information" (Macy 1983 p.7). Once we contact our own fears about the future of our world, she believes, a great well of vitality is released which can be used for positive action. This belief has been the basis of her "Despair and Empowerment" workshops. These workshops are designed to enable participants to contact their own fear, anguish and whatever other negative emotions they may feel about the state of the world. By fully experiencing these emotions rather than repressing them, Macy says that participants would be able to overcome their desire to avoid facing squarely the situation which human beings have created in the world. By doing so, they release reserves of energy which they can then harness to work for positive change (ibid).
Another possible reason for our lack of response is that because so many people lack a sense of place, they also lack a realistic sense of time. Because their future is no longer tied to the future of a particular part of the Earth, they are unable to think about the future of the Earth as a whole. If I assumed that I and my children after me were going to spend our days on the land that I now occupy, and if I depended on that land to supply my food and other needs, then I would be bound to take care of its future. If, on the other hand, I am not attached to a particular piece of the Earth, then I may find it hard to be concerned about "The Earth", which cannot be experienced as an entity and must therefore remain just a concept.
Another possible reason is that our image of time has ceased to be the circle and has become the arrow. Instead of seeing the future as being in some way a repetition of events that have happened in the past, modem industrialised humans see the movement of time as being in one direction only. (This is dealt with in more detail in section 2.11). With such a view, it is probably easier to countenance the end of time. Sooner or later, an arrow falls to the ground. Why try to fight it?
Joanna Macy points out that Ronald Reagan and his notorious Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, made public statements about the imminence of Armageddon. Watt, in particular, did not attempt to conceal his fundamentalist belief that there would be no more generations on Earth. He therefore saw no reason to preserve what would not be needed in the future (Macy 1991 p.209).
Another possible explanation is that individuals feel the magnitude of the forces arrayed against them -- in governments and multinationals -- are so large that they have no chance of influencing the course of the future. The trend towards the centralisation of power, and the disempowerment of local communities have helped to bring this about.
Whatever the reasons behind our disregard for the future, it is crucial that the future becomes more real to us.
3.4 Joanna Macy and the Nuclear Guardianship Programme
In my search for written material on the connection between our attitudes to time and our relationship with the environment, I found that not much had been written specifically on this issue. I believe this to be a confirmation of the importance of exploring the topic. There needs to be more awareness about it.
One of the few writers on the subject is Joanna Macy, and it was inspiring to discover the relevant chapters of her book, World As Lover, World As Self Clearly, she has thought and felt deeply about the issue.
In her exploration, nothing is more moving than her involvement with the issue of nuclear waste storage. The radioactive wastes produced by nuclear power plants and in the production of nuclear weapons "extend the effects of our actions into vast reaches of time". She calls our mismanagement of this problem "the most appalling example of our denial of the future" (Macy 1992).
These wastes can cause "disease, death and sterility". They can also affect the genetic code itself and they will have the potential to do so for thousands of years. Yet "we dump millions of metric tons of waste into open unlined trenches, into the sea, into cardboard boxes and into tanks that crack and corrode within a decade or two" (Macy 1992).
Joanna Macy has been campaigning to have these wastes stored in guarded waste silos which would, in addition to protecting future generations from the threat they pose, be a testimony and reminder of our commitment to the future. Few people have thought as deeply about how our actions will affect yet-to-be-born humans as Macy has, and Brian Swimme once said of her, "she has thousands of friends, and most of them haven't been born yet" (Macy 1992).
As well as providing perhaps the most extreme example of our rather less than ideal relationship with the future, Macy' 5 account of her response to this issue is enlightening in the way that it affects her personally.
Prior to her involvement with the nuclear waste issue, she had been oppressed by the feeling that time was short: "Hurry, hurry to keep the world from blowing up". However, when she realised how long these wastes would be around, "the question of how fast one could get something done was replaced with the question of how long - how lo-o-n-n-g a period one could do it in" (Macy 1992). This produced not only a change in attitude but physical changes as well: "my breath slowed, the rib cage eased. The horror of the waste was helping me reinhabit time".
This suggests that our relationship with time affects us in a very direct, physical way. A changed attitude to time produced observable physical changes. By "reinhabiting time", we reinhabit our bodies.
Go to "Don't Just Do Something; Sit There" Continued (time4)