Disgusted by Passivity

I have been meaning to check into the recycled content of the toilet paper at my workplace since I started here. I have told myself to research the brand over and over again, but have just been too lazy to check into it (and now it’s been over a year). Finally, today, I did. I was surprised and impressed to find out that it is incredibly Eco-Friendly paper and isn’t just marketed that way. They use 100% recycled pulp in the paper. This made me feel better for not doing anything for so long. Then I realized feeling better is the opposite thing I should be doing. My passivity on the issue disgusted me.

I consider myself an environmentalist. I read Derrick Jensen like his works are the books of the Bible, I preach up and down about the problems in our society and in nature. I talk constantly about it. Yet, I don’t DO much. I do not do a hell of a lot of things. I don’t drive much. I don’t leave my computer or TV plugged in when I’m not using them. Sure, these things are good. But when’s the last time I researched a company on my own (without the work done for me by Green Peace of the Sierra Club) and contacted them about their harmful practices?

I have wanted to email the restaurant Egg Harbor about their Styrofoam to go cups for over a year. I have meant to email the Sheraton about their use of Kimberly Clark products. (I waited so long on that one that Kimberly Clark has actually pledged to stop clear cutting before I sent an email).

That is the problem with the environmental movement. We are all too damn passive. We have been sucked into this society like everyone else and although we see the problems, we refuse to step out of the cave. How scary would it really be to get our feet wet? I preach about conservation yet work a full time job on a computer. My company isn’t the worst when it comes to environmental practices but it isn’t the best either. Yet I do nothing, because I must pay the bills. I refuse to admit that there would be far less bills if I lived in a place where I didn’t have to commute and could grow my own food.

I don’t know what it will take, a question that Derrick Jensen asks, to get people to actually do something about the destruction of our planet. Forests cut to the ground, global climate change, widespread starvation—none of this has been enough for me. Maybe I just need to admit to myself how bad it has gotten. Perhaps I need to travel to the forests that can no longer support even plant life because their soil is ruined by clear cutting. Perhaps I need to embrace a wolf pup and try to explain to it why there will be no supper now or ever because his entire family was shot dead from an airplane. Perhaps I need to leave the protective bubble of the 9-5 grind and get out there.

But that would be hard wouldn’t it?