Are We Insane?

From the top of a mountain in Western North Carolina a question was asked.  In a still voice with depth, but without overly dramatized inflection, the question was raised:  "Are we insane?"  The speaker's immediate reference was to the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico as we sat on our mountaintop with its beautiful views.  His question was actually much broader in scope than today's oily horror.

I was mesmerized by the sanity of the comments made by the man who asked the question.  He is the Executive Director of North Carolina Audubon and he was speaking to members gathered for the society’s annual meeting.  He was calm, but fervent.  He spoke to a need for a thoughtful discourse as those who decry "tree-huggers" resist conversationists' efforts.  Thanks to Chris Canfield for inspiration, honesty and a kick in the pants that's well-timed.

He spoke of our need to awaken to what we are not doing, to questions we’re not asking. He was honest enough to say he doesn’t have all the answers. In fact, there are many questions in conservation today that have no answers, but unless we’re asking the questions and pursuing those answers with commitment, we will continue to fail in our stewardship of this planet, our home.

If we have the technology to drill miles below the ocean’s surface to find oil, then we have the technology to develop fail-safe measures to prevent the catastrophe now taking place in the Gulf of Mexico. The problem is not that it can’t be done; the problem is that we don’t demand it.  We don't even question it until it's too late to save the beaches, the pelicans and the shrimp.

His analogy regarding the Gulf oil spill and BP’s inability to stem the outflow of thousands of gallons of oil that are now washing into the Louisiana marshes asked us to think about a plumber. If you hire a plumber to put a water system into your home, don’t you expect that plumber should be able to repair the system if it fails?

We’re all comfortable requiring our automakers to make good on the products they sell us. We’ve been pushing them pretty hard lately. Think about the recalls among the broader manufacturing companies that we’ve all seen. They have to fix what they make if it breaks. Why haven’t we demanded this of those drilling into our precious oceans for oil? Did we learn nothing from the Exxon Valdez incident?

It would be easy to blame the government. Yes, they share in the blame. But “they” are us. Whether we like it or not, we put them in office one way or another. We allow appointed bureaucrats to make decisions about our lives. Our excusing of our own culpability in these matters is akin to the BP executives pointing fingers everywhere but at themselves.

It is time we take responsibility for our lives and what we will leave for future generations. We don’t have the luxury of time to waste on blaming others. We do have the opportunity to become engaged in first thinking, then acting on what each of us can do to learn from Nature and clean up after ourselves, use only what we need and become protectors of our environment rather than predators.

The first change must be within ourselves. We’ve demonstrated that we can change, even when we don’t want to do it. We have begun to recycle more, send less to landfills. We have begun to find better ways to heat and cool our homes, refrigerate our food and wash and dry our clothes.

We can change. We must change. Our children and their children will learn their ways from us. If we begin now to seek ways to make a difference and take action, it could be the most important revolution in America since 1776.

Photo by Mike Lumpkin