Turn back the clock. It is 1988. Switch on your television, sit back and be fearful - for the world as we know it is coming to an end. David Suzuki says so. And others. Global warming is upon us. Scientists, deeply green environmentalists and traditional communities knew well before this moment in time. Now its our, the public’s, turn to be informed and not a moment too soon. Called to take some kind of action I immerse myself in research, enter the tunnel of despair until a glimmer of light sees the publication of my small contribution in the form of a book called ‘Earth Alert’.
Cover of book Earth Alert 1991.
The name of the space craft I.D.E.A stands for Intergalactic Delegation for Environmental Awareness!
The forces gather and names
come to the fore. Along with David Suzuki who gives us ten years in which to
‘turn it all around’ and offers us practical solutions, Paul Erlich warns of the
dangers of over population, over consumption and finite resources, James
Lovelock, originator of the Gaian theory, woos us with the idea of the earth as
an interconnected living wonder and some of us re-read Diet for a Small Planet
and Small is Beautiful. I read Bill McKibben’s ‘The End of Nature’ and dismally
intuit that every sunset, wind, ocean, stream and drop of mother’s milk is
forever sullied by some human made contaminant. I am deeply saddened, write a
novella ‘The Ball’ but no one wants to publish a modern parable tinged with
fear. ‘Not sexy enough’ my publisher tells me!
Sullied sunset. Arabian Sea. © Carole Douglas 2010
I surrender my car. Build a
bigger compost heap. Leave notes all over the house to remind us of waste,
energy, pollution! We invest in jute shopping bags. Exchange ball pens for
pencils. Eat organic. The lists endless! Names, theories and ideologies emerge
and flower briefly, global heroes ride on green tinged waves and as the
nineties roll on we continue to march, make banners, write to politicians and
hound local government to take action while we think globally. Environmental
Education is introduced as a curriculum subject into our primary schools. We
celebrate. Hold conferences. Self congratulate.
Leaders and activists gather
on the edges of a turning tide in Rio de Janeiro - the Earth Summit is a new
high in our dreams of salvation. At Rio Centro and at Global Forum I mingle
with monks and mystics, prophets and profiteers, activists and actors, journalists
and jolly green giants, politicians and protestors - the full spectrum of
humanity as the planet gathers for change. In lighter moments we samba to save
the planet. I witness a moment in Australia’s history when I am invited to take
the official photograph of Ros Kelly as she, one of the first, signed the Climate Change Convention that preceded the Kyoto Protocol. Paul Keating was notable by his absence. I rub
shoulders with the likes of David Suzuki, Shirley Mclean and Paulo Freire, arrive
home armed with Agenda 21 firmly in my grasp in the belief that we, the
combined we, can make it happen.
Big words. Are they telling us that over consumption combined with over population and finite resources will bring about our demise? David Suzuki sits in Canada resolutely educating the public with simple everyday solutions and James Lovelock sadly stated last year that he is ‘James Lovelock, scientist and author … environmentalist and founder member of the Greens’ who now bows his head in shame at the thought that their original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. Ecologist at heart he is deeply disappointed in a movement that has failed to understand that the needs of the Earth are inseparable from human needs. My mind is filled with the image rendered when he asks us to ‘take care that spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island - monuments of a failed civilisation.’ Who mentioned nuclear power?
Free Internet image.
5000 megawatt coal (from Australia) fired power plant in progress. Gujarat coast.
© Carole Douglas 2009
© Carole Douglas 2009
Déjà
Vu. The little publication Earth Alert sits on the shelf waiting for me to dust
it off and re-read (I note I changed my name in 1994). I suspect the scientific evidence on which it was founded
remains pretty much the same although the statistics will have worsened. I might
attempt to launch ‘The Ball’ again but how to make it ‘sexy’? In the meantime I grapple
with the terrifying lack of political and public commitment to the future of our
planet and our continued profiteering from the life force which sustains us.
In
the meantime please …
STOP
and take stock of the current state of the planet
LOOK
and take real action on its behalf
LISTEN
to its heart beat and make it your own
BREATHE
deeply and make every waking breath really count
… not a toy to be played with and discarded on the sands of time!
© Carole Douglas 2013
Please
contact me if you want to know how to - or get a recommended reading list.
‘Education either functions as an instrument which is used
to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the
present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of
freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with
reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.’ Paulo
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
NB
*Annie is not her real name. Changed to protect privacy.
