To Till and to Tend

In my last post, I bemoaned the persistent scapegoating of China in US climate policy. This approach is not only unproductive, it’s especially inappropriate in light of China’s emerging commitment to conservation. As ksharp commented, China will ban the free distribution of plastic bags in June, a major accomplishment for a nation that currently uses up to 3-billion plastic bags daily. Last June, China unveiled a national climate plan. And Chinese wind power productivity doubled in 2006 alone.

That’s not to say that the US hasn’t made any improvements in this area. The new Energy Bill raises automobile fuel efficiency standards for the first time in 32 years. It also effectively eliminates the incandescent lightbulb within the decade. But before we get too smug, we should pause for a moment to consider China’s progress in these areas. China manufactures 80% of the world’s compact fluorescent lightbulbs. And what of that 35 mpg CAFÉ standard we’re so excited about? China’s fleet-wide efficiency will reach 36.7 mpg next year.

And while many (including myself), hail the US Energy Bill as a major accomplishment, the final bill lacked many of the safeguards we hoped for. Most notably, the bill’s accomplishments came with the sacrifice of a proposed Renewable Electricity Standard, which would have required 15 percent of US electricity to be produced by renewables by 2030. Yet China already obtains 17 percent of its electricity from renewables – and that number is projected to increase to 21 percent by 2020.

That’s not to say that China is perfect. Certainly, I’m wary of our ability to truly combat climate change without having firm commitments from a nation with 1.3 billion people. I’m also worried about China’s construction of an average of one new dirty coal-fired power plant each week. But while we may still want to occasionally point a finger at China, we should also have the commonsense to use our hands to applaud its accomplishments.


[For more on China's accomplishments in this area, read the comprehensive analysis by the Worldwatch Institute, Powering China's Development: The Role of Renewable Energy or visit China Watch.]

[PS: Last week, Whole Foods announced that it, too, will be eliminating plastic bags this spring!]

Every year, on the 15^th day of month of Shevat, we celebrate the annual renewal of trees. Just about now, in Israel , almond trees are blossoming, reminding us that there is always new life to come. 

Three weeks ago, I witnessed (not literally) a different type of renewal. I became an aunt and my grandfather (whose 85^th birthday is today, Tu B’Shvat) became a great-grandfather; our family genes will (if life works the way it should) live on longer than I will have the chance to experience. 

In the environmental field we talk in the context of generations: climate change, deforestation, species loss, pollution are all global problems that we are just beginning to understand and will take years to salve, let alone solve. All of us who recycle, who bring our own bags to the market and who change our energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs to CFLs must have faith that our actions, at some future point in time, will matter.

Jewish traditions prompt us to believe that our actions matter and I have spent my aware life believing that what I do makes a difference in the world. Nonetheless, when I first saw my nephew, I couldn’t help but believe that my actions mattered even more now. There, in front of me, was a face of the future.  He will live in the world that we pass down.*

Years ago I learned a Talmudic tale (Ta’anit 23a), a teaching which I only recently appreciated with my eyes.  It tells of an old man planting a carob tree.  A passer-by, noting the age of the man, asked him, “Do you expect to live long enough to eat the fruits of the tree?”  The old man replied, “When I was born, this world was filled with carob trees planted by my ancestors.  Likewise, I shall plant trees for my descendants to enjoy.”

*A note of pride: the “organically grown” onesie in the picture was a gift from me to my nephew and is part of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) “Simple Steps to a Better World” initiative.  My brother and sister-in-law are working hard to raise their child in a sustainable manner, in hopes of creating a sustainable world for him to inherit. 

Every year, on the 15^th day of month of Shevat, we celebrate the annual renewal of trees. Just about now, in Israel , almond trees are blossoming, reminding us that there is always new life to come. 

 

Three weeks ago, I witnessed (not literally) a different type of renewal. I became an aunt and my grandfather (whose 85^th birthday is today, Tu B’Shvat) became a great-grandfather; our family genes will (if life works the way it should) live on longer than I will have the chance to experience. 

 

In the environmental field we talk in the context of generations: climate change, deforestation, species loss, pollution are all global problems that we are just beginning to understand and will take years to salve, let alone solve. All of us who recycle, who bring our own bags to the market and who change our energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs to CFLs must have faith that our actions, at some future point in time, will matter.

 

Jewish traditions prompt us to believe that our actions matter and I have spent my aware life believing that what I do makes a difference in the world. Nonetheless, when I first saw my nephew, I couldn’t help but believe that my actions mattered even more now. There, in front of me, was a face of the future.  He will live in the world that we pass down.*

 

Years ago I learned a Talmudic tale (Ta’anit 23a), a teaching which I only recently appreciated with my eyes.  It tells of an old man planting a carob tree.  A passer-by, noting the age of the man, asked him, “Do you expect to live long enough to eat the fruits of the tree?”  The old man replied, “When I was born, this world was filled with carob trees planted by my ancestors.  Likewise, I shall plant trees for my descendants to enjoy.”

 

 

*A note of pride: the “organically grown” onesie in the picture was a gift from me to my nephew and is part of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) “Simple Steps to a Better World” initiative.  My brother and sister-in-law are working hard to raise their child in a sustainable manner, in hopes of creating a sustainable world for him to inherit. 

 

Advocacy and ethics are the two poles on which environmental activism rests. They are the opposites that drive and fulfill each other.

Advocacy is public; ethics, personal. Advocacy is behavioral; ethics, attitudinal, essential.  Advocacy is what you do; ethics define who you are. Advocacy is about winning (appropriately so); ethics about being.

Without ethics, advocacy has no guide, no imperative, no claim. Without advocacy, ethics has little expression, remains sterile, wanders homeless.

Advocacy is specific (one fights for the trees or CAFE standards). To be effective, advocacy must be selective, linear:  choose a particular issue, develop arguments to gain fellow adherents, create coalitions and work toward its passage or approval. The question advocacy asks is: how do we get from here to there?

Ethics, on the other hand,  focuses not on the specifics but on the whole; not on the externals of an issue, but the internal aspects of beliefs, behaviors and personal commitment. The question ethics asks is: who am I; and therefore what should I do?

When guided by environmental advocacy, we must choose our battles. Pesticides, global warming, the cattle industry, local food. But  when guided by environmental ethics, these battles are all of a piece. When guided by environmental ethics, we know that the environment cannot be carved up into causes, bills and organizations; it is whole, inseparable. We know that we are not apart from it but one with it; that while our appetites and designs may be infinite, the stuff of the world is finite. That we are not gods who may with impunity strut and thrust our whims upon the globe, but transient beneficiaries of the earth’s bounty. And that just as we have been blessed to enjoy the fullness of the earth’s gifts handed to us by our ancestors, so we must bless those who come after us.

Though advocacy may exhaust us; ethics inspires us. And while ethics motivate us, advocacy gets the work done.
 
Ethics is the mind; advocacy the hand. We need them both.

                                           

Environmental Justice is a little-known concept outside certain circles of activists.  It emerged from the awareness that the impact of fixing the environment, and dealing with global warming’s negative consequences, will disproportionately, and unfairly, impact the poor. Disproportionately, because the poor have fewer resources to invest in the emerging efficiencies or to pay for the higher prices of energy and common goods; and unfairly because they are not the major contributors to environmental degradation.

It is all the more remarkable, then, that the coupling of these two issues, environmental protection and economic equity, is present in our founding text, the Torah.

“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it.” (Exodus 23:10-11)

This year of environmental restoration and generosity is the Shemittah year, which, according to rabbinic time-keeping, falls again now. This year, in an ideal world, the land would regenerate its nutrients and fertility, and would feed the poor at no cost from its spontaneous harvest.

One could imagine that in a year without farming, produce would be scarce, and expensive. Enterprising entrepreneurs could gather the crops that grew on their own and could sell them at exorbitant shemittah prices. To prevent this, and to be certain that the costs of regenerating and healing the land would not unfairly disenfranchise the poor, the fields were open to all, according to their needs. The poor ate for free.

But the biblical injunction to protect the poor did not stop there. “This shall be the nature of the forgiveness [in the shemittah year] : every creditor shall forgive the debt that his fellow owes him; he shall not dun his fellow or kinsman, for the forgiveness proclaimed is of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 15).

It is not just the land that shall be rejuvenated every seven years. It is everyone. Debts that crush a person’s initiative; debts that leech the fertility and creativity out of a person’s spirit, and therefore rob all society of their potential, are done away with come the shemittah year.

Environmental protection cannot be allowed to burden the poor. Scarcity cannot be allowed to burden the poor. Debt cannot be allowed to condemn the indebted.

Caring for the earth cannot be done at the cost of burdening the poor. When both land and the poor are cared for, everyone thrives.

 By now it’s become a familiar refrain: the U.S. shouldn’t make any serious commitments to address global warming until China gets on board.  This rhetoric nearly sabotaged the Bali Climate Change Conference last month. In the end, the U.S. succeeded at watering down the final agreement, convincing the European nations to forego a commitment from the developed world for concrete emissions reductions in favor of an agreement that simply talks about cuts instead. [For more on our role as an international bully, see my December 26 post].

I understand the instinct that drives this position. After all, the 2008 Climate Change Performance Index  ranks China near the bottom in a survey of 56 nations.  China contributes more than 15% of the world’s CO2 emissions – and it is slated to overtake the U.S. as the single largest emitter.  Yet, for all of our talk about China, the U.S. fares much worse in the Performance Index.  In fact, China is ranked 40^th (out of 56 nations).  The United States is ranked 55, “out -performed” by only Saudi Arabia.  The Performance Index credits China’s recent advancements on climate change, improving its rankings from previous years because of “China’s serious efforts to enhance energy efficiency and promote renewable energies as well as the recognizable turnaround in national climate and environmental policy within the last two years.”  The Worldwatch Institute examines these efforts in great detail in its recent report (“Powering China’s Development: The Role of Renewable Energy”).

There is no doubt that we won’t be able to solve the climate crisis without China’s cooperation. But the United States cannot wait for the Chinese to take action. It turns out, the Jewish tradition has something to say about this.  Pirkei Avot teaches: “It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet, you are not free to desist from it.” These words ring true today: a China-less response will not be the final answer to climate change, but that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibilities.

… luck blew my way.  After a run on the beach with my father, the two of us joined my mother for breakfast at the hotel, a hotel that was built on a slope rising from the shore.  A mere fifteen minutes later, that slope slowed the waves as they approached.

… 300,000 people weren’t that lucky.  Some were too close to the epicenter of the quake and nothing could have saved them.  Others lived and vacationed by the shore, at places where coral reefs were harvested and sand dunes flattened. 

After the tsunami, scientists began to ask why some waves reached 30 feet, while just a few miles away, the waves peaked at 10.  As nature can destroy, so can it protect.  Coral reefs, sand dunes and mangrove forests are all nature’s way of protecting its shores. Years before, coral harvesters and hotel developers unknowingly made the choice of who will live and who die; whose life possessions swept away and whose kept out of harm’s way.  At the time, their actions were innocent and maybe even noble; after all, they were feeding their families.  But now we know – their actions led to the destruction of their coastal communities. 

We so rarely see the repercussions of our actions. Whether we take the time to consider the chain of events that brought us our strawberries in December, discounted meat at the market, mahogany wood for our cabinets, or Southeast Asian coral for our bathroom decorations, lives and ecosystems change and sometimes even die.

Although there is always more to learn, we already know so much. Let 2008 be a year that we stop ignoring that which we know and act constructively.