Confessions of an “Enviro-Neurotic”

I have “systems” that most people think I am obsessive about. Until now, it used to drive people away from me and recently in our slowly becoming conscious society, these practices are beginning to be mildly tolerated by others. Through my attempts to try and reduce my ecological footprint, I have found systems that help this mission that involve trying to reduce my water use, energy use, amount of waste I create, etc. I can seem a little manic about it (especially when met with resistance) and am often pressuring those around me to adopt my practices and with some of those really close to me; I even inflict this on them regardless of their opposition. Let’s say this upfront: I do not consider myself an environmentalist…yet. I don’t possess the knowledge or the science nor am I set up to be so. I try the best I can. There are WAY more committed and militant people out there than me. I do consider myself to be an “enviro-neurotic”. That is to say, I am overly neurotic about the impact I have on the environment. This is natural for me as I come from a long line before me of neurotic people that were neurotic about other matters and now in this day and age I direct my centuries of skilled neuroses on saving the planet every way I can in my limited reach. To others, I’m annoying and a pain in the ass. In this day and age, sacrifice is essential. There will not always be people on opposing sides of this view but until we find alternate ways to cool the air the debate will be there. Those who have seen the need to reduce our carbon footprint need to find each other to increase their influence on those who haven’t. Its too hard for just one to try and convince others and we could use the support in our organization. Those reading this that think I am overly neurotic, yes you are right I am overly neurotic but please all I can ask is that you keep an open mind and follow my posts and don’t feel isolated and turn off from this message. For most of you, you are unwilling at this time to sacrifice your comfort in return for reducing your carbon footprint but eventually we will be sacrificing more than air conditioner use and I choose to prepare and play my part in prevention of immanent environmental crisis then completely ignore it. I know: I sound drastic and will lose most people at this point as an overly neurotic doomsayer. For me though, it’s not that drastic, I see it as a sport or great art form and challenge and I do what I can to play my part in being a “contributor” to the collective change of our behavior towards the environment as opposed to a “user” of energy with no regard of the impact one has on the environment. I even have a challenge with some (a very aware 16 year old Daniel Silverman in Boulder Colorado, where we measure our water use in attempt to beat each other at the amount we use per week – he’s still beating me but I’m more set in my ways) I will continue to explore some of these practices that I have taught myself in further posts to come. There is a lot I will share in the weeks and months to come: confessions of an enviro-neurotic. I looked it up: there are no anonymous groups out there for me…yet.

I think it all started when I was in high school. I remember the very first “earth day” that went public. I think it was 1990 and there was a big gathering at Queens Park. There I was, 16 years old with my friends eating a street hot dog at a gathering that we really had no idea of the implications of being there. This was long before we knew about water shortages or global warming. For us it was a chance to go downtown and gather with mass amounts of people and celebrate the earth. While we were walking and finishing off our street meat, my friend tossed his napkins on the ground! I couldn’t believe it! Here we were at earth day and my ignorant friend and eventual nemesis does not have a clue! “Danny!” I yell. He turns around and looks at me with a stupid look on his face. “What?” He really had no clue at what I am angry at. We just stand there over the napkin in a standoff. “What?!?” I say pointing at the napkin “The environment!” I yell back at him, way ahead of my time. “And its Earth Day!”, I add in, implying that at least on this day of all days and the reason we are here that he respect some basic environmental law of not discarding your used napkins on the street. He turns and starts to walk away completely dismissing me and I have never, till this day forgotten what he nonchalantly said back to me. “So what? Its my environment too.”

Unfortunately not much has changed. I continually find myself in some small standoff with others over these issues. The ARC office is usually quite warm. There is an air conditioner but I prefer it to be off, (we have since moved and I didn’t take the air conditioner with me) the result of it being off is that we sweat and be a bit uncomfortable. It takes practice but eventually the heat doesn’t bother you. What’s the big deal? It’s hot outside! Of course it is! We live on a part of the planet that during the summer months heat up. Completely natural that’s its hot. And we sweat. Is there ever a time in our existence as humans that we didn’t sweat? Its been going on for millions of years. How come all of the sudden it’s a problem? We were built for the job. Sweating is what we do! That’s why we have sweat glands. Otherwise we’d heat up like ovens and combust. So why are we so afraid to be a bit uncomfortable? Why are we becoming less capable of coping then the other way around? Shouldn’t we be getting better at it? Why are we so complacent? When did we start losing our focus and ability to live in our environment? Are we completely incapable? Try sweating uncomfortably for a month and I promise being uncomfortable will be over. I don’t even notice it anymore. I am just used to a thin layer of sweat on me now. It’s like being in a sauna full time and it’s amazing how much weight I have lost and I always have a healthy glow about me. Gone are the days of ignorance where we used air conditioners without knowing the price it costs to use them. We now know that if everyone uses them that we consume large amounts of energy and collectively increase the carbon in the air. So how do we keep doing this? Why do I still walk in people’s houses and feel like I am walking into a meat freezer? Did these people not get the bulletin? What’s their argument in defense of this? It’s time we started to openly discuss this. Everyone is so quick to dismiss it and tell me to leave them alone saying – “its my house, I like it this way” assuming that that is the end of all arguments. We haven’t come very far. In fact, in the quest for socio-political and economic autonomy, we are getting farther and farther away from any collective intention to save our environment not just for us but for generations to come. Yet at the same time we point our fingers at the big bad corporations for ruining the earth yet we don’t look at ourselves. Collectively, home owners pollute way beyond any corporations. We are the problem here. It’s like an identity crisis. It’s hot in the world but we refuse to admit it. Instead we pretend it’s comfortable and continue to destroy the earth so we can be “comfortable”. If you were looking for a metaphor it would be like we are unhappy with the way we look or the way we are and instead of accepting ourselves we try to change ourselves so we can feel more “normal” Is it not normal to be hot and sweat? The argument is “I’d rather be comfortable” but because everyone would rather be comfortable (including refrigerated malls and movie theatres) we are continually increasing our carbon footprint.

There are positives to this post. I am reading everyday about the corporations out there that are changing their way of doing business and looking at the impact they have on the environment. Not all is lost. Soon they will start producing products that will change our behavior. Let’s start meeting them half way. Consumers (that’s us) are the largest group capable of changing the way we do things. We as a collective are the biggest polluters on the planets. It’s the corporations that try to meet our needs. We need to show them that we want to change and we recognize the need for our use of more sustainable products because our behavior dictates that.

There is a metaphor that reflects this behaviour in the growing use of plastic surgeons to change the way we look and decrease any signs of aging. Nose jobs and face lifts show us that we are uncomfortable being ourselves and no wonder our environment is going to shit. No one wants to be who they are and the planet is suffering for it, eventually making it uninhabitable for us. How can we save the planet if we can’t accept who we are? So far all those of you out there considering a nose job, keep this in mind: unless you can get a new nose that emits a way to reduce the carbon dioxide in the air every time you breath then think twice of the impact of not being comfortable with who you really are, what purpose you are here on this planet for and how that eventually effects our relationship with the planet we live on.

What is your purpose?