My Journey

In September, 2009, this Canadian boy started a masters program the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, learning about ecology and health, middle-eastern politics and the environment, and how a dire problem may facilitate a region's coming together for the better. This Blog is a record of my head-first dive into this immense world.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

An Earth Day full of Paradox

So, my commitment to sticking to nothing but personal awe in my contribution to the Earth Day discourse got diverted slightly through reading a couple of articles that were sent my way, the first by my daily NYTimes feed and the second posted on Facebook by the lovely Lauren Rauch, a program assistant at the Machon.

The Times piece is titled "At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business" and chronicles the uneasy bed-fellowship of the environmental movement and big businesses.  My favorite feature of the article, exemplifying what many would see as the blatant co-option of the environmental message just to push more useless crap, is the Peat the Penguin toy:


According to the article:
F. A. O. Schwarz is taking advantage of Earth Day to showcase Peat the Penguin, an emerald-tinted plush toy that, as part of the Greenzys line, is made of soy fibers and teaches green lessons to children. The penguin, Greenzys promotional material notes, “is an ardent supporter of recycling, reusing and reducing waste.”
Now, the fact that its made from soy fibres might at first glance seem like a win, but likely those soy fibres are coming from former rain-forest in Brazil, not a family farm down the road.  That aside though, I suppose that if it came down to the question of which toy to buy your child, starting with the assumption that they need a brand new toy every so often, a little bird that spews a conservation ethic is definitely preferable to many other toys.  As a bit more of a radical though, I would say that by wedding the superficial conservation ethic to a tangible act of simple consumerism, the act is self-defeating or even counter-productive.  The blatant greenwashing involved leads to the good feeling of having "done the right thing," without having to actually change your way of life one bit.  This is the ultimate goal of green capitalism: simply replacing the paralyzing array of consumer choices with "sustainable" choices which don't deplete resources.  That way we can have modernization, economic growth, and sustainability without having to do anything differently!  Now, this is theoretically possible, but it's just so much easier to put the money into advertising green than to actually making green products, and with current technologies (and projecting them into the near to mid term), it just seems out of the realm of credibility to assume we can really have it all without facing the hard reality and doing the real work of changing our legislation and lifestyles. 

   The article closes with a quote from Robert Stone, a film maker who documents the American Environmental movement:
“Every Earth Day is a reflection of where we are as a culture,” he said. “If it has become commoditized, about green consumerism instead of systemic change, then it is a reflection of our society.”  
 Well put.

The second article is from Mondoweiss, described on its website as : "a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective."  This article, titled "Earth Day in Israel: Apartheid Showing Through the Greenwash" and written by Stephanie Westbrook, also covers Earth Day from the perspective of scratching the surface to see just what's under the greenwashing.  Those put off by the term "apartheid" in the title can be justifiably perturbed, and I certainly wouldn't advocate the term, but the article does point out some incredibly troubling stark contrasts in the realm of environmental justice.  While across Israel people participated in the voluntary blackout to raise awareness of energy consumption and in Tel Aviv a concert was powered largely by generator running on vegetable oil and volunteers on power-generating bicycles
The irony was not lost on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza who have been living with daily power outages lasting hours on end for nearly three years due to the Israeli siege on the coastal territory. The Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) reports that over 100 million liters of fuel were allowed into Gaza in 2009, however as Gisha points out, that amounts to only 57% of the need. As summer approaches bringing peak demands, spare parts and tools for turbine repair are in dire need. There are currently over 50 truckloads of electrical equipment awaiting approval by the Israeli authorities for entry to Gaza.
 While Israelis go starry-eyed over planting trees and preserving green space
Palestinian farmers from the West Bank village of Qaryut near Nablus had their own tree planting ceremony in honor of Earth Day, only to find the 250 olive tree saplings uprooted by Israeli settlers from Givat Hayovel. Another 300 were uprooted during the night of April 13 outside the Palestinian village of Mihmas by settlers from the nearby Migron outpost. The Palestinian Land Research Center estimates that over 12000 olive trees were uprooted throughout the West Bank in 2009, with Israeli authorities responsible for about 60%, clearing the land for settlements and construction of the wall, and Israeli settlers the rest.
Finally, the starkest contrast comes in the realm of water.  The Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection had a contest and gave out awards for IDF groups that did well in a water conservation contest while
For Palestinians living in the West Bank, this "protection of water sources" was documented in Amnesty International's October 2009 report Troubled Water: "The Israeli army’s destruction of Palestinian water facilities – rainwater harvesting and storage cisterns, agricultural pools and spring canals – on the grounds that they were constructed without permits from the army is often accompanied by other measures that aim to restrict or eliminate the presence of Palestinians from specific areas of the West Bank."
The Amnesty International report also notes that for decades, Israeli settlers have instead "been given virtually unlimited access to water supplies to develop and irrigate the large farms which help to support unlawful Israeli settlements." And nowhere is this more evident than the Jordan Valley where 95% of the area is occupied by Israeli settlements, plantations and military bases and where "Israeli water extraction inside the West Bank is highest."
 Now, if this isn't tantamount to Apartheid, I'd at least go so far as to say it is racist.  Many people would argue that I'm picking on Israel, using a double standard, etc.  But the fact remains: Israel has the power.  If your goal was to breed extremism, I'd probably suggest a similar use of power as the one that Israel uses constantly in the uprooting of trees and livelihoods and the wanton and pointless destruction of property that clearly poses no security threat (e.g. rainwater harvesting and cisterns!).  My thought is that there is no peace and sustainability without justice, and right now we are a very long way away from justice.

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