On dropping out of society

16 Aug 2006

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

Although I have always been one to conserve, recycle, etc., it is only in the last year that I have realized the extent of the catastrophe coming upon us in terms of climate change. I am 40-something, live in a city, own an older home with a sizeable mortgage that requires my husband and me to work, two kids, two cars, etc. I've done all the usual stuff: changed the light bulbs, we've each started biking to work when we don't have to pick up our kids, and I've gotten politically active, writing emails and organizing my first event for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Part of me feels such panic, though, and thinks we should sell the house before it becomes unlivable due to power and water shortages and economic meltdown, and join a sustainable community off the grid with water catchment, etc., and devote myself to environmental activism. But I like my job, my friends, my neighborhood and don't really feel like starting over and am not sure I've got what it takes to live self-sufficiently. So does it make more sense to stay here and try to change things from within, even while living more wastefully, or should we get out while we still can?

Laura Brown
Oakland, Calif.

Ask Umbra continues below

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Dearest Laura,

Just about every progressive person grapples with some version of this question at one point or another. Shall I take part in this pitiful, wasteful culture while doing my best to change myself and others around me, or should I move beyond this culture into something better and more sustainable?

Don't give up the fight.

Photo: iStockphoto

Good question.

Ultimately, it's something you (and your family) are going to have to work out on your own. But since you asked, I am happy to offer some tidbits of advice.

First, let me say there's room on the environmental spectrum for us all, and an infinite number of ways to contribute -- whether you're making sure you and your friends are taking the most effective personal eco-actions, or supporting the efforts of green groups that sue polluters, or engaging in carefully considered eco-vandalism, or running a giganto corporation, or living on a commune off the grid.

One observation I can offer is this: it sounds like you think you can only truly devote yourself to activism while living in some sort of eco-topia. But be assured that this is the easiest kind of activism -- the converting-the-already-converted kind -- and also the least useful. The more difficult, and more useful, kind is working to alter the attitudes and lives of the as-yet un-green, very few of whom you'll encounter in your eco-haven.

It also sounds like self-sufficient farm or commune living might not be your thing. Remember: you don't need to suffer to be green. If where you are is where you're inclined to stay, I say stay. There are plenty of ways to contribute there. You are already working with my beloved UCS, and other opportunities abound. Try getting rid of one (or both) of your cars, or lobbying for clean-energy projects in your area. Go to a baseball game, and tell the Oakland A's you love their smart composting program. Do whatever you can to help make others aware of the changes that are coming, and how they can help. Take a deep breath. There's still time.

If the gloomy forecasts still make you panic, there are things you can do to prepare for the worst: You should be buying local -- it's good to support farmers and the local economy now, and if our oily economy does go down the drain, then it might be your only food source. Since you live on the coast, you might want to think about other areas of the country where you could imagine living. I suppose you could brush up on your survival skills. Be sure to teach your children well. And think about befriending some off-the-gridders who might let you join their community when or if industrial society collapses. If it doesn't collapse, then you get a bonus: friends are still friends, after all. No matter how they use their power.

Doggedly,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (9 comments)

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You're not the only person.....

Check out a very thoughtful discussion of this from someone who has done both:

http://www.energybulletin.net/3757.html

by gogogreenguy at 12:47 PM on 16 Aug 2006

urban greenery

Thanks, Greenguy, for Toby Hemenway's thoughtful essay. (Though I think he is wrong about high-wind meteorological events minimally affecting small fauna. No matter, his basic argument is sound.)

And thanks, Umbra, for a typically humane response.

On city-living: Yes, it is true that generally, the eco-footprint is modest and limited. But there are different urban lifestyles, are there not. And some are unfortunately quite suburbanoid.

On buying local: Yes, that is a seriously important ideal, which we do our best to rise toward. But in regions with severe seasonality, it is not always that easy. As my Californian husband says, for people in the Bay area to preach that everybody across the land should always "buy local" is rather like New Yorkers insisting that everybody across the land should get out and hear live opera.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:49 PM on 16 Aug 2006

Stealing Spears from Hannibal.

Thanks Canis for pointing that most people do not live on the West Coast ecotopia cornucopia. We do and love our easy self reliance. Our nearest neighbor was a mile distant when I built our organic home deep in the woods. No power, no phone, no driveway, just firewood and a vegetable garden. I am now surrounded by suburbanites totally dependent on an oil economy for survival. I do not feel safe.

There is no safe harbor on Earth. We are all at extreme risk from global warming on the cusp of peak cheap oil.

We (Grist) need to find answers to the questions of the young and the poor. Civilization is most important to them.

Diverting the military budget for transforming civilization into a sustainable one is doable. The military seems incapable of winning wars for oil so why continue to pour our future into that stupid immoral rat hole. Even Bush seems unable to destroy civilization so that is not an (Derrick Jensen) option. Alternatives to carbon-based energy would be lower risk and far more cost effective (William McDonough) option.

by sunflower at 2:30 PM on 16 Aug 2006

Great question

I think this family in the Ask umbra example ought to reduce their footprint by staying in their home. Split it up into two or more apartments and put more people in the same space, that really saves expensive energy.

Then install all the water and energy saving technology you can with the rent you get. That will let you pay it off sooner too, in case you need to flee.

Then get a place outside the city where you can escape to if necessary. Either joining a sustainable community or your own place. You can even garden in that other location.

It's the small business way to do it. Another less capitalist way would be to make an arangment with people in a rural sustainable commune to share city/country space. Fill the apartments with your exurban friends when they need to live or work in the city.

Then they reciprocate with garden space and living space for you to live in the country at times. Grow local food yourselves!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 5:41 PM on 16 Aug 2006

Frustrated with my city

I live in Washington D.C. and have just discovered your great website and blog. I loved reading this latest ask Umbra because I have been feeling for quite some time very alone in this city of our government. I have been reading everything I can get my hands on about Global Warming and am very alarmed. Nobody that I know at work, kid's schools or friends cares about this issue. I am talking about the forecasts for the future but people don't want to hear it. Since I read The Weathermakers, the seriousness of the future is front and center on my mind. I feel like I am mentally loosing my friends because I can't just talk about which BMW to buy without wanting to teach them about being wasteful. To them I am becoming a green nut and to me they are seriously blind to the seriousness of the issues.
Anyway, I too thought about leaving but not only do I need nature to nuture me, I need friends.
Karen

by aloneindc at 4:30 AM on 17 Aug 2006

DC dreaming

Thanks, Karen Alone, for your comments. Sorry you feel as you do. Actually you are in a good position, to report to the rest of us on the mood of the capital.

Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers" is up there with Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and Elizabeth Kolbert's "Field Notes from a Catastrophe" as a good source on global warming. Not only is he an excellent writer; he is also a real scientist. So it is troubling that, as you have found, there should be so little interest in the subject in DC.

Inasmuch as the subject is political, and the government is in the hands of the deniers' friends, perhaps silence on global warming in DC should come as no surprise. After all, in early 2004, the exhibition of Subhankar Banerjee's gorgeous photographs of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, at the Smithsonian, was more or less suppressed, once Barbara Boxer referred to them on the floor of the Senate in the course of an anti-Cheney speech.

If you have the time, maybe you should follow Maywa Montenegro's suggestion, and apply for the course on presenting Al Gore's slide show. Chances are, you will meet some interesting, like-minded people that way.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 6:46 AM on 17 Aug 2006

Fight or Flight

This was so timely for me... as I pack up what's left after yet another downsizing and prepare to begin my Personal Quest for a More Sustainable Living Situation! I am grateful for the link to the urban/rural column but I too tried the rural self-sufficient path in Colorado in the 70's. My question is no longer urban versus rural but how to find and create a mixture. So now I am looking for a small town somewhere in the NE with rail access to a larger city perhaps where there would be trains to where my father lives in an assisted living situation but still needs some contact and errands. I live in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, with little available mass transit that goes beyond the downtown- certainly not to where my father is- so I have been driving there monthly for over a decade. Not sustainable any longer! I have been here for 22 years, working hard for many environmental causes, including transportation, environmental justice, brownfields, etc. But I have done as much personal behavior change as I can here and now need something more personally sustainable in a larger context. So... it is exciting and scary and maybe I will see you in DC, Karen! One thing I have found is that when other people see and hear you trying to live your life with as much thought and integrity and love as possible, it is enormously powerful and initiates wonderful discussions (and a ripple effect in behaviors)!

An ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk. -Vivekananda

by karenc at 10:29 AM on 17 Aug 2006

AloneInDC

Karen,

Congrats on your journey of discovery, I hope you will share what you learn with the rest of us! It is always helpful to hear what people experience when they try to go out of "small communities" like this one and talk to others. I know it is tough to do, and appreciate your efforts!

Try to find an organization you can relate to, a local environmental justice group might be good. I am not familiar with DC, but am sure there are some.

Then you can have a community to sustain you as you continue to outreach to folks around you.

As you try to talk to people, remember that you were once like them (or maybe not), and try to understand why they don't share your concerns and knowledge. Understand that the vast majority of the information people receive in American society is designed to make them feel good and fit in. It is not designed to make them aware of societal and environmental problems.

So it is unlikely you by yourself can counter all of the disinformation around you. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't try. At some point, someone will change, and they will remember your efforts with gratitude!

Hang in there. La Lutta Continua (the struggle continues).

patrick

by bookerly at 1:32 PM on 17 Aug 2006

The follow-up

Here is a follow-up to the original article that I posted:

http://www.patternliteracy.com/urban2.html

I think it is interesting the number of comments that this "Ask Umbra" column has generated - much more than many others. It seems lots of people have this on the brain.

by gogogreenguy at 9:04 PM on 01 Sep 2006
[ Parent ]

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