Why I’m Not (Why Am I Not) an Activist?

January 10th, 2010 → 6:55 am @ Andrew

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Why I’m Not (Why Am I Not) an Activist?
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If you ever want to get close and personal with forced environmentalism, live on a boat. Dealing with garbage, recycling, human waste, and “grey water” becomes an immediate and pervasive challenge. Every time you take something out of a plastic wrapper, you’re forced to make a decision… Am I going to throw this in the water, or pack it around until I can discard it in a better way? In this example, that means you’re stuck carrying around trash. I am of course assuming you follow the “don’t s&#! where you eat” principle, but I don’t think that’s a tricky one to wrap our heads around.

When living in more respectable accommodations, the actual impact of waste disposal is negligible to most people. Your main question is “which magical bin that makes things disappear should I throw this in”. From then on, it’s out of sight out of mind (for most people). Removing the psychological trick of having something magically disappear, and assuming someone else who knows what they’re doing will take care of it, amplifies the drama of everything. For me, it didn’t take long for that to reverberate back up the proverbial food chain. Living on a boat forces you to think about recycling, biodegradability, and packaging materials in a very real way. If you think those ridiculous clear plastic bubble packs that you can’t ever get open without slicing an artery are bad now, wait until you’re forced to stow the 8″ x 10″ blood stained packaging remnants when you’re done removing your postage stamp sized memory card.

I now make buying decisions based on packaging… and I’m not talking about the sexiness of the design. Well… unless you think efficient, low(er)-impact packaging is sexy. If that’s the case, I can only assume I’ll be hearing from you in the comments below.

After You Get Tired of Resisting the Urge to Scream

The question of activism has been bothering me lately. I certainly have no problem taking positions on a vast array of facts, thoughts, concepts, issues, theories, conjectures, hunches, guesses, dogmas, et cetera. I’ve even been known to go out on a limb for inklings. This list is by no means exhaustive. Don’t make me pull out the thesaurus.

As a consummate full-time skeptic and industrious information whore who rejects the term “conspiracy theory” out of disdain for the mere dismissive implication, I’m usually even able to wrap some sort of cohesive reasoning around the positions I take. What’s bothering me is the internalization of ideas. What good is it to be convinced of certain things through thought and study only to check them off as learned or understood? That seems like a waste.

Of Excuses and Rationalizations

I’ll admit, this isn’t really something that just came to me. It’s been brewing for years. In those years, I’ve watched and enjoyed my fair share of documentaries. The first time I heard about the migration of killer bees to North America terrified me as a kid. The first time I heard about the collapse of bee populations in North America terrified me as an adult. I watched the U.S. invasion of Panama on television; not thinking it was anything other than a great thing. I’ve had friends in Panama City explain that I had to watch my step on the sidewalks because the cracks the tanks left 17 years earlier had yet to be repaired. I’ve hear childhood stories of Panamanian friends being trapped in their homes for days in fear of being shot. My mind has been paradigm shifted from the clouds to the mud so many times it would be easy to dismiss this all as intellectual and psychological vertigo… too easy.

The most likely cop-out is that I too easily accepted a predominant cultural bromide: Don’t talk about religion or politics. Those who know me personally know that I rarely follow such formalities advice in even somewhat familiar company. Well my friends… From now on, I’m assuming we’re all familiar company.

That isn’t the half of it though. Frankly, I’ve been turned off by activist stereotypes. As a child who split time growing up in cities and logging towns in the Pacific Northwest, I was no stranger to arguments between tree-hugging liberals and rednecks with “I like my spotted owls fried” bumper stickers. There was always something a little too “true believer” about those high decibel conversations.

I have a hard time engaging in conversations formed around political party lines. When allegiance to a group trumps allegiance to reason, I tune out in a hurry.

Bad Example Du Jour: Global Warming

In this case, the science seems completely irrelevant. Some days we have apparent scientific agreement and on other days we have scandals and allegations of fraud in the scientific community. Then everyone dusts off their Adam Smith and stirs in a touch of Keynes and a dash of Friedman. In the end it seems like we’re making a decision between saving the planet and saving the nation. Really drama queens? That’s what this is about?
I don’t care about the science in this case. Do you need a scientific paper to tell you that your car’s tailpipe emissions are unsavory at best? Do you need congressional consensus to tell you that burning stuff tends to get messy? When matters of common sense are hidden by smoke and mirrors, the conversation is lost. (yeah, bad cliche timing)

Competing ‘Isms’

There’s nothing bad about a good ‘ism’. I’m fond of many of them. I understand and respect many I’m not fond of. However, activism has at times appeared to be the battlefront for the competition of isms. That sounds like what I was saying earlier about the irrational political delineation of issues, but I’ve moved on. I’m now referring to the perceived one-upmanship by factions who agree with one another. Why should socialists be turned off by feminism in veganism?

I have no stomach for those games. Sometimes there’s truth in the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Activism is so often a whisper in the face of an apparent monolith that it just doesn’t make sense.

Enough Whining. Let’s Destroy Some Entrenched Constructs

Perhaps all of the above negativity wasn’t necessary. It is totally irrelevant from the standpoint that I no longer feel like allowing myself to be subjugated by the cultural pressures repressing activism itself. However, I think there are a lot of people out there who are alienated from the process because of stereotypes. It makes no difference whether or not the stereotypes are accurate. The fact that they exist needs to be recognized.

So that brings us to the “What’s next?” part of the conversation. My next step is to figure out where to focus my efforts and which organizations to align with. I have some in mind, but assume I am starting from scratch. I don’t want to miss anything. If no organizations fit the bill, then we’ll reevaluate the situation.

You probably already have a rough idea that I’m in the process of putting together an expedition to explore all of planet earth using only wind, solar, and human power. To be more accurate, the goal is to accomplish the task without burning any fuel. If you can a hull out of ginormous peltier panels that generates enough electricity for supplementary electric propulsion, we can talk about that too.

For whatever reason, this blog gets a lot more traffic than the comments reflect. I know there are a lot of you lurking out there. I love you all. If you are reading this, please recommend an organization (or ten) or cause or thought in the comments below. If you’re too shy for that, I’d love for you to contact me privately.

Related Causes I’m Attracted To

Buzzwords

  • Green
  • Sustainability
  • Alternative Energy

Environmental

  • Water Issues
    • Ocean
    • Lakes
    • Rivers
    • Food supply
  • Land Issues
    • Trail Use
    • All the other ones

Energy

  • Wind
  • Solar
    • Photovoltaic
    • Passive
  • Human
    • Direct
    • Electricity Generation
  • Peltier/Seebeck
  • Magic?

If you know of a cause or an organization that might tie into what I’m doing in a less obvious way, please share. Human rights, civil liberties, international law, farming (genetic implications, sustainability, legal/patent issues). It might be hard to sell me on veganism/vegetarianism categorically or morally. However, I can easily take positions against things like chicken growing practices, shark finning (though I am semi-afraid of being ironically killed by a shark), sustainable fishing practices, et cetera.

If you are involved with an organization that may make sense, I’m open to your self-promotion (in this thread at least).

My main motivation in asking for recommendations is that there is a lot of potential to influence decisions I’m faced with in putting this expedition together. As one tiny but significant example, I need to build or purchase another boat to pull this off. If there is an environmental advantage to building a boat with aluminum versus fiberglass or carbon fiber or steel, there is opportunity to educate me. Also, it isn’t something like… If you tell me I should definitely only use aluminum construction, then I expect you to give me an aluminum boat. But I will weigh the research against my needs and make an informed decision. I do my best to research these things, but my awareness is limited to the information I happen to find. Increase my awareness and I’ll have an opportunity to increase it more.

There are two similar, but distinct ways I’m thinking about this… As mentioned in the example above, there are the resources I deploy and expend. My decisions and actions are open to input. The other, more accessible path, is the awareness of things I think are important that I’ll be able to spread through this website and the exposure surrounding the adventure. How long do you really think a marketing guy is going to keep this whole thing a relative secret?

So that’s that. I’m out of the activist closet. Let’s put Utopia on the timeline and get to work.