Environment: November 2007 Archives

One reason so many people in California and around the country "tune out" and don't participate in our own government is they believe that creating change is beyond their control. It often seems that things are locked in by powerful, wealthy interests with regular people locked out of the process. This feeling of loss of control has been established by many disappointments over the years.

There are experiments in "learned helplessness" in which rats are unable to control when they are given shocks. Eventually they just lie down and give up.

For example, rats that have been exposed to shocks that they cannot control often become strikingly passive when later placed in new traumatic situations. They appear numb to the new trauma as if they have "given up." Alternatively, they also become especially fearful of environments where they experience similar traumas and will try to avoid such situations.

Does this sound like you, or people you know? Or maybe way too much of the state and country?

Take heart, for things CAN change! In Australia's last election the people threw out the bad-on-the-environment conservative government and brought in a government that promises to immediately sign the Kyoto anti-global-warming agreement to reduce carbon emissions.

And look who the new government is placing in charge of its environmental policies! Former Midnight Oil rocker Garrett named Australia's environment minister,

Peter Garrett - the towering, baldheaded former singer of the disbanded Australian rock group Midnight Oil - continued his long, strange tour from pop star to politician Thursday when he was named Australia's environment minister.

With his wild dancing and strident voice, Garrett was one of Australia's most recognizable singers until his band broke up in 2002, after belting out politically charged hits for more than 25 years.

Garrett founded Midnight Oil when he was a law student in 1973, but the semi-punk rock group did not achieve global fame until its 1987 track "Beds are Burning" - a protest song about Aboriginal land rights in Australia.

And so, to celebrate, here is something we can all "tune in" to:

Midnight Oil, Beds are Burning:

Clearly human nature is want to ignore the obvious until it strikes us in the face, or in the ocean in the present case. Why we aren't willing to be sufficiently pro-active and take preventative measures in the face of imminent or likely disaster is a mystery on the one hand and yet an inevitability on the other. Or so it seems.

Take the oil spill in the San Francisco Bay on November 7, 2007---just over a week ago. We know that oil spills can and do have devastating impacts on wildlife, ocean eco-systems and local economies. We know, too, that much can be done to prevent or at least signficantly reduce the possibility of catastrophic consequences of oil spills. An obvious preventative measure is to require tankers to be double-hulled, or require the use of tugboats to help them traverse difficult passage-ways, like the San Francisco Bay during heavy fog. Another is to require our emergency response agencies be well-trained and well-equipped with the most up-to-date equipment to respond in case protective measures fail. Of course, this also requires a willingness to make an investment of resources.

In today's California, the notion of coughing up the bucks to protect against disasters or provide the resources to rapidly contain them if they do occur, is just not politically feasible. And heaven forbid we call upon those massive ships or the even more massive oil industry to pay sufficient fees to assure their product doesn't pollute our previous shores. But, when disaster strikes--by fire, by flood or by oil, we expect those resources to magically appear. We complain when aircraft shows up late to make water drops or when equipment to contain oil seepage isn't available or deployed quickly or when there just aren't enough people or machines available to do the job.

The consequences, of course, can be devastating....and the ultimate damage much more expensive than the costs of protecting ourselves in advance. Prevention is always worth a pound of cure, but if prevention keeps the problem from happening, we tend to believe that there wasn't a problem to begin with---so why spend the money in the first place? Or is it, sadly, the sage observation by great songwriter Joni Mitchell that "you don't know what you've got til its gone..."?