By Tony Hagen • editor@newjersey.sierraclub.org
“You can’t preach temperance from a barstool” – Sen. Ed Markey
One recent morning, I awoke to much grinding and crunching coming from the property next door. It was the wrecking crew for new curb construction. It was loud.
To escape and regroup, I hopped into the car and drove to Starbucks.
Abandoning ship is a reflex action that afflicts many Americans. To escape the ills of modern civilization, we go not only to Starbucks, but also to many countries abroad.
We are mostly driven to those extremes by the results of our own actions. Without working and producing we cannot afford to live, and by producing and consuming we make our world less habitable.
Our streets are filled with cars and trucks; our air with noise, soot, and ozone; and our water with all manner of toxic things.
Faced with this, everybody feels entitled to an occasional trip somewhere, even though it may leave a carbon trail from Florence to the Bordentown Starbucks, or from Newark to New Zealand.
The dollars we put into circulation by taking these trips help others to do the same, and thus the damage is repeated.
We are the only creatures on the planet who seek to hoard enough for a lifetime of consumption and then continue to hoard well beyond that point.
Not enough is said about the need for consumer restraint. The reasons why are a well-kept secret. Once spending declines, the economy starts to shrink and people lose jobs, often the people who need them most. Further, the long-term economic security of everybody is predicated on a vibrant economy.
But some adjustment seems necessary.
We do need to link our climate policy more closely to fiscal and monetary policy, so that not only does the economy not overheat or sputter, but also we do not cook the planet to a cinder.
And those three words, “reduce, reuse, recycle,” should become a mantra for the modern age. We need consumers and companies to do their part in living less large.
Bordentown Starbucks instead of Lake Geneva? It sounds ridiculous, but somewhere between those two extremes there’s a better outcome for the planet.
Like everybody else, I want to spend and travel. I’d like to ride horses in Mongolia or cruise the Bosphorus. It’s painful to hold back, but eventually we’ll have greener aircraft that can get us to these places without such a devastating environmental impact. And even if that never happens, there are discoveries to be made much closer to home.
People led meaningful, fulfilling lives in Ben Franklin’s day, when the only conveyances were horses and sailboats, and most of the food you could buy was grown (or shot) within 5 miles of your house.
Somehow, as consumers, from Jeff (417-foot yacht) Bezos on down, we need to voluntarily cut back.