Aha! moments

Share your green awakening 5

A good friend of mine has just turned green. But it wasn't The Great Warming or An Inconvenient Truth that did the trick, but Robert F. Kennedy's Crimes Against Nature.

I bring it up because this friend is well-read, intelligent, and politically liberal; he has certainly been exposed to all the same evidence that won other people over long ago. And yet until now, the only time the word "environmentalist" issued from his mouth was when he was teasing me about being one. RFK's book -- with its contrast of political and corporate greed on one hand and democracy-driven environmental stewardship on the other -- spoke my friend's language ... and now he won't shut up about tragedies against the commons and government-subsidized pollution.

It's rather funny to watch someone truly get for the first time something others been ranting about for ages. And although I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, my own "aha!" was not so long ago: it honestly wasn't until seeing An Inconvenient Truth this past summer that I truly grasped the urgency of global warming.

Once you are tuned in to climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, of course, you find yourself awash in a sea of damning evidence. (It's similar to the experience of learning a new word and suddenly hearing it everywhere.) The sea might make it hard for some to remember a single moment of enlightenment, if indeed one occurred.

Nonetheless, it remains an interesting question -- it reminds us that our message must be not singular but an array of appeals to our equally varied interests: social duty, morality, and spirituality, but also social status, economic well-being, and competitiveness.

Maywa Montenegro is an editor and writer at Seed magazine, focusing mainly on ecology, bidiversity, agriculture, and sustainable development.

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  1. Kate Sheppard's avatar

    Kate Sheppard Posted 3:47 am
    06 Nov 2006

    Ah Haha!Crimes Against Nature was my "Aha!" moment as well. In college I was a teaching assistant in the writing department, and each semester I ended up with a differently themed freshman seminar to assist. My last semester as a TA, the theme was the environment, and I entered with little more than your average good-natured progressive's investment in the subject. But the book totally provoked me to translate my thoughts on power and privilege and their abuses to active concern about the environment.

    Kate Sheppard

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  2. JMG's avatar

    JMG Posted 4:02 am
    06 Nov 2006

    Here's oneWhat's the first response that comes to your mind when you see this news headline:
    * Colony in Lenawee rarely seen in Michigan

    Ann Arbor News

    By Tracy Davis

      It's not clear why a colony of evening bats - a small species that is extremely rare this far north - chose a piece of real estate along the River Raisin in Lenawee County to live. http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-20/...
    Man, what's not clear to one is a shout to another . . .

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  3. KathyF Posted 4:49 am
    06 Nov 2006

    For meit was Tim Flannery's book, The Weather Makers. I read it while I was in Scotland, during the summer solstice, and it was freezing outside but I couldn't stop thinking about how the planet was warming.

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  4. caniscandida Posted 6:51 am
    06 Nov 2006

    great suggestionThis sentence is positively thrilling:

    <<

    RFK's book -- with its contrast of political and corporate greed on one hand and democracy-driven environmental stewardship on the other -- spoke my friend's language ... and now he won't shut up about tragedies against the commons and government-subsidized pollution.

    >>
    Clearly, the book should be required reading for all Democrats in office now or seeking office in the future.
    But, Maywa, I am confused: you say your friend's Aha! moment did not come by reading (or seeing) "An Inconvenient Truth."  Does that mean he did read it (or see it), and was not impressed?  Or does it mean the opposite, that he never read Al Gore's book or saw the movie, though he did read RFK's book?  Actually, Al Gore touches on the subjects that you mention, even if he does not quite present them in a thorough, sustained way.
    I do not think I had an Aha! moment myself.  It was more a feeling that grew through the 1960s and 1970s.  I remember the powerful impact of that old TV commercial, with the faux-Indian quietly weeping by a polluted river; accounts of endangered wildlife; "Diet for a Small Planet"; "Silent Spring."

    Chickens are our cousins!

    So are other sensitive animals!

    Enough is enough!

    No more factory farms!

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  5. Maywa Montenegro Posted 11:50 am
    06 Nov 2006

    Selective HearingCanis---I am actually not sure whether my friend has seen An Inconvenient Truth or not. (I believe he has but I'm not certain). I agree with you, though---Gore definitely touches on many of the same subjects discussed in Crimes. Why these ideas merely bounced off my friend's forehead in the movie theater but not when he read the book may have been a personal preference of messenger (my friend has a long-standing soft-spot for the Kennedy's)or it may have been the more sustained delivery, which you mentioned earlier. Nonetheless, it just goes to show that people can hear the words a thousand times, and then suddenly hear the message.

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