The 20th century did not begin well. After the warm-ups of the Crimean and Boer Wars, Europe stumbled into World War I in 1914, a fatal combination of hubris and stupidity that killed about 17 million people. The trauma inspired an unflinching examination of the dark recesses of the human psyche in an effort to understand what happened. Dada, the mindless artistic expression of absurdity, was not a satisfactory answer. The philosophical loneliness of existentialism was arguably a nihilistic consequence of the monumental blunder of the First World War—a loss of any remnant of idealism and collective human wisdom.
Whatever self-revelation occurred was not particularly helpful. World War I provided the causative factors for World War II, which morphed into the Korean War, the Vietnam War and then the Cold War, which generated thousands of nuclear-armed missiles poised to strike the opposite side of the competing socio-political ideologies. Should this conflict ever become “hot” by intention or accident, the combatants and much of the world as we know it would likely experience MAD, the appropriate acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction.
Beneath all this madness, however, another war was unfolding. Had we been more astute and less obsessed with our little human differences, we might have noticed that our collective behaviour was collapsing the ecological stability of our entire planet. It’s not possible to overstate the seriousness of this process. Choose any of its major metaphorical battlefronts: global warming, species extinction, ubiquitous pollution, ocean acidification and sea level rise. Each could dislocate humans and cause suffering of biblical proportions. An exercise of the imagination can start tallying the scenarios: droughts, floods, storms, novel diseases, mass starvation from crop failures, population displacement from inundated coastal cities, and economic stresses all compounded by an excessive human population. These threats, singularly or collectively, could make the wars of the 20th century seem like a kindergarten scuffle in a sandbox.
We are now entering a new iteration of the war years. The environmental movement is an effort to reduce this conflict as much as possible, and thereby to minimize the losses imposed by implacable natural forces that understand neither negotiation nor compassion. Those amoral forces will have peace, but only on their own terms and in their own time. As Covid, heat domes, atmospheric rivers and forest fires remind us, they will continue to challenge us with their ingenious surprises.
Our side of the war effort is underway with mixed levels of conviction and application: the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, COP26, and the various United Nations summits. But the incentive to act immediately and dramatically is becoming increasingly and undeniably clear. “We have met the enemy,” as Pogo famously said, “and he is us.”
The root of the problem is ourselves, so this is where the solution resides. Like the thinkers at the end of the Great War, we need to attempt another intense and honest examination of who we are, what we are doing, and why we are doing it. If we ever lived in an era of innocence and naivety, it’s over. Our frivolous fixation on want will have to become a considered measure of need. The quest for too much has become a suicidal obsession.
In simplest terms, we either change our behaviour or countless people may die, and the fabric of our civilization may be stressed beyond recovery. What we have been doing to date is not working for either ourselves or the life systems of our planet. Our situation sometimes feels like another version of World War I with the troops already deployed, or like MAD with the missiles already launched.
Yes, this is a sobering conjecture. But blithely hoping it’s a misrepresentation of our circumstances is an evasion of responsibility that we can’t afford to take. Too many warning lights are flashing. Maybe we have the ingenuity and resources to escape the trap we have set for ourselves. Maybe not. But, if we do nothing or too little, we won’t know until it’s too late.
On Quadra Island, as in many places in the world, we are facing the same conundrum. If we are to contribute to the solution rather than the problem, what can we do? We can begin by strengthening the ties that bind us into a sustainable community. We can avoid problems by simplifying our lifestyles and infrastructures—small problems are easier to solve than big ones. But, with imagination and foresight, we can solve problems by avoiding them before they occur.
We are also an island of trees. They regulate our groundwater, filter our drinking water, host biodiversity, ameliorate weather extremes, freshen our air, sequester carbon, and furnish us with beauty, wonder and pleasure. Globally as well as locally, healthy forests are crucial in our struggle to maintain as much ecological equilibrium as possible.
So, instead of cutting down forests to add to the carbon crisis, we could be nurturing them as biological systems that enhance life and sequester carbon. As the British Columbia government’s Old Growth Strategic Review of forestry practices recommended, “chasing volumes is not sustainable”. The only viable option is to shift to ecosystem management, in which the health of the forests are given priority over annual allowable cuts.
On our little island in the wholeness of things, we need a paradigm shift to match the history into which we have once again stumbled by a combination of hubris, greed and stupidity. Perhaps we will be smart enough to realize that this is an intractable war which can only be won by submitting to the implacable terms and conditions set by nature.
Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra
Top image credit: young woman exploring the remains of Battleship Island (Gunkanjima) in Japan – (click here to read the story of Gunkanjima) Photo by Jordy Meow on Unsplash
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