State of world causes some to ask ‘why bother?’

I’ve been having a tough time lately with my decision to go to school and start a new career in natural resource conservation. I’m enjoying my break from working in The Real World and I like the prospect of working outdoors in the future, but lately I’ve been feeling like it’s all a little pointless. With last year’s oil spill, the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, mining of the tar sands, drilling-caused earthquakes in Arkansas, and wars everywhere, what really is the point in trying to conserve this planet humankind seems intent on destroying? Of course the reading I’ve been doing hasn’t helped: “Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” “Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water,” and “Unquenchable – America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It.” Depressing stuff. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that cities are going to continue expanding exponentially and we’re going to poison every last bit of our water, soil, and air. We’ll soon cripple our planet in our attempts to extract every last bit of oil and other resources, then we’ll destroy ourselves as we go to war over the last little bits that remain. My brother calls me “Chicken Little.” You know, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” But really, isn’t the sky falling? We’ve done so much damage to the Earth that even if we could instantly stop it would take hundreds of years – or more – for what we’ve already set in motion to cycle through. So, what the hell do I think I’m going to accomplish, becoming an ecohydrologist? I can’t change the way people think and act. Even if I do influence a few, there are thousands of people born every day that won’t agree. Although there are beautiful wilderness areas and parks all around us, there are also mines and toxic waste dumps and plastic islands in the ocean that are only getting bigger. I recently learned about the Y2Y Corridor (Yukon to Yellowstone) – an attempt to reconnect wildlife corridors spanning 2 countries and a large portion of North America. It’s an ambitious effort and sounds like a wonderful idea. But even if that works, we’re still mining the tar sands in Alberta – poisoning air, water, and soil adjacent to the Y2Y with toxins that will spread into and far beyond the corridor. So basically we’re just helping the wildlife population in the U.S. and Canada recover so we can poison it. Awesome. Why am I bothering? I recently went to a film documenting the life of Aldo Leopold. For the first half of the film I thought over and over “Why did he bother?” Several people interviewed in the film, including members of Leopold’s family, said that he would be proud of all we’ve accomplished. I kept thinking “Would he?” Really, what would Aldo Leopold think of our dependency on oil, genetically mutated crops, the Berkley Pit, and prescription drugs in our rivers and streams? How far have we really come? Midway through the film a new thought snuck into my head – what if he hadn’t bothered? What if Rachel Carson hadn’t noticed the Silent Spring? What if my hero, Theodore Roosevelt, hadn’t decided we needed to create national parks? If Pinchot hadn’t joined him in founding the Forest Service? What if Nixon hadn’t created the EPA, Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act? What if Al Gore hadn’t brought Climate Change, however controversial in its details, into the media spotlight? I don’t pretend to aspire to those levels of greatness, and I can’t imagine the world will change much for better or worse if I stop caring. But what if we all do? What if my friend Jennifer stops raising awareness for responsible farming and eating? What if Sam stops fighting for salmon? If Rick and Bart stop protecting the river? What if Kitty stops fighting urban sprawl? What if Kelly, Alli, Bruce, and Eric give up on green design and construction? What happens if Brad stops being involved in his millions of eco-adventures in Seattle? What if all the wonderful people I’ve met through Green Drinks, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Nature Consortium, Conservation Northwest, The Lands Council, various land trusts, the Forest Service, and so many others I can’t possibly remember – what if all those people gave up? Or even worse, what if they never cared in the first place? So, I don’t know if I’ll ever make much of a difference on my own. But what I realized on my walk home, watching a little kingfisher stalk its prey in a side channel of the Clark Fork, is that every little thing we each do adds up. We inspire each other and we keep each other going. So this spring my resolution is to keep going, and to remember to thank all of you for all you do and for keeping me going. Friends, you inspire me. Thank you!