COP 26 is in the rearview mirror and Greta Thunberg’s “blah blah blah” was the only phrase to stick in international consciousness. No memorable “only thing to fear is fear itself” or “ask not what your country can do for you.” Not even a “buck stops here.”
Having lived through a fair number of pivotal moments, I take note of young participants that come up with follow-me rhetoric, because they will emerge as leaders of tomorrow. And, in the case of climate catastrophe, tomorrow is coming fast. But their words should contain some kind of guidance. Blah blah blah, while it sums up COP 26, doesn’t set us on a course to solve the problem.
Americans will soon be able to buy electric cars and drive across the country from charging station to charging station. And we can improve our lightbulbs, put timers on our thermostats and recycle everything, but will that help? Even if we all move into tiny houses and resolve to buy nothing new this year, the carbon footprint of our military makes it impossible for Americans to achieve a sustainable lifestyle.
In 2019, a researcher figured that the military expels 77% to 80% of the entire US government’s carbon output. Buildings and airplane miles were the main culprits, just as they are for the rest of us. Humvees get 6-8 miles per gallon. Ironically, the military estimates that 30 bases are under threat from rising waters and violent weather events.
The military will point to success in adopting solar energy at some bases. A better plan would be helping local populations adapt to their climate-related problems in the lands that we so-call “serve.”
The answers are so difficult that not even Greta wants to say them. Real change requires that Americans give up many of our cherished traditions. I’m talking about over-consumption, and our national addiction to spectacle. Family gatherings—weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays—must become smaller, more intimate. Food traditions must change from the triple-burger of factory-produced treats to the consumption of locally-produced plants and an occasional bit of meat. Small families must become the norm.
With such painful solutions, it’s no wonder that the pundits and politicians dance around the issues. They suggest improving the electrical grid and planting forests, and what more could they say? In the face of impending doom for the entire planet, which is now being played out with raging fires, savage storm events, melting glaciers, devastating droughts and hordes of migrants abandoning their homelands, words fail.
Actions fail as well.
Not too far from my place is an Amish community that lives as close to carbon-neutral as anyone in this nation. Home gardens. Horse-drawn vehicles. Ice houses with ice cut from farm ponds for food storage. Wood heat in the homes. Chilly public buildings. Generations live in family clusters without electricity, telephones or internet. To communicate with kin in other places, they write letters. Really. If they want to visit someone far away, they hire an “English” to drive them. A dozen English in nearby towns make their livings “hauling Amish” to the city or to see friends.
Every Amish community is a little different because they allow lifestyle amendments if the elders agree. The ones near me hunt for winter meat and many of their solutions to health problems come from the weeds in their yards and woodlands. Mechanical gadgets have crept into their lives, so gasoline pumps have replaced windmills. And, the last time I visited, I spotted a battery-powered headlamp on one fellow’s wool cap. But even for the pacifist Amish, since they are Americans, their carbon footprints are enlarged by the military that flies planes over their heads. Amish do, by the way, pay for those airplanes with their taxes. They pay all normal taxes except social security or unemployment; they depend on savings and the kindness of family to get them through hard times.
So, should we all become Amish? Uh, no. As one formerly-Amish man of my acquaintance told me, “It’s a cult.” He left, but he took along an enviable self-sufficiency and resiliency and a desire to work to solve problems.
As I was writing this, “Eight First Impressions of a Time Traveller” appeared in The New Yorker. “Hey, I’m from the future. You better change your ways” the piece begins. When that message fails, the time traveller tells us that Hollywood Sci-Fi had predicted it all — fires, floods, marauding hordes. But nothing gets our attention.
Losing patience, the traveller blurts out, “You’re ticks sucking blood from the future” and, in desperation, “If you don’t stop climate change, communists will take over the earth. Or capitalists, whichever one you hate. You’d better get on that.” More visits, more failing messages, and in the end the traveller leaves in disgust, saying “the future is locked because you’re too useless to change.”
And we respond: Blah blah blah.
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History”. Email: margotmcmillen @gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2021
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