Injustice and the Doldrums

It’s mid January and the winter doldrums are knocking at the door. They could be brushed aside with a reasonable snow event or a string of sunny days, but we seem in a rut with overcast skies and temps that are never long freezing and never long mild, prime conditions for the doldrums. On a river walk this morning we saw several deer, a few geese, a heron, a mature bald eagle, but they all seemed rather pedestrian, lacking enthusiasm, which happens when the doldrums take hold.  They spread a film of gloom on everything and the music of life is muffled.  

A current weather model shows the bulk of the Hoosier state in the clear while being completely surrounded by a substantial snow maker.  The area of Indiana in line to be missed is literally in the shape of a heart, as if the weather gods are favoring us, and it’s not making me feel favored one bit.  I’d love to see a nice 14 inch event. 

The battery on our utility tractor died.  Actually, it failed months ago, so to start the tractor I had to first charge the battery.  It's not a huge deal but does require some disassembling, which becomes a bigger deal during the doldrums, so I went out to buy a replacement.  The battery is small, a lawn and garden type, and the replacement was $125.  I suggested to the cashier that the price was outrageous.  She raised an eyebrow.  I bought the battery.  

Leaving the NAPA store I saw a car along the curb with a flat tire and a missing window.  I imagined the owner coming out to drive to a job that paid less than a livable wage and finding the car out of commission.  Maybe, as a consequence, a store shelf will not get stocked on time or there will be a longer line at the cheeseburger drive up window, and some privileged character dealing with the doldrums will complain about it.  Then I imagined the flat tire person receiving a letter from the local utility warning that services would be shut off if his/her account was not brought current, and somewhere in the background a baby was crying.

There was an interesting opinion piece in The Guardian last month by Amy Westervelt. She said trying to get people to pay attention to science won’t save the planet, but motivating them to fight for justice can have equal benefits because the two are inextricably connected. To her point she mentioned a husband/wife team of crabbers off the California coast who saw their livelihood failing as a result of warming ocean temperatures. Neither of the duo subscribed to human-caused climate change, believing instead it was a naturally occurring event. Then they learned that back in the 70’s and 80’s, oil companies were patenting methods for drilling in arctic waters which would soon become navigable, and at the same time launched ad campaigns designed to question the science behind human-caused climate change, even while their own scientists had proven it a fact. The husband/wife crabbing team signed onto a lawsuit against 30 oil companies, not for their role in climate change, but for their disinformation campaigns which intentionally misled the public for the benefit of corporate stockholders. 

On a mostly unrelated matter, I came across a 2020 blog written by Indi Samarajiva (indi.ca) published in Medium.  Indi was living in Sri Lanka and experienced life in a civil war zone over a decade ago. He has an interesting take on societal collapse, describing it not as a moment in time but a process wherein life goes on for the privileged, more or less as always. He talked about seeing a burned body on the street, hearing an explosion where people were killed, losing acquaintances in skirmishes, but then going to work, dating, attending concerts and weddings as if nothing had changed.  This, he says, is what collapse looks like.

I suppose it makes sense. During our civil war, life for many went on as usual, and for a good number of us it still does. We hear about conflict and unrest and impending environmental disaster but our daily routines are almost always unaffected. It’s not fair or right or just, but true.

Samarajiva mentioned that human behavior in times of crisis can be compared to a herd of gazelles.  A lion attacks and pulls down an animal and the balance of the herd sprints away, putting distance between them and the uncomfortable event that just occurred. Once safe, the gazelles settle into their routine and resume feeding. 

Not all of us behave as gazelles, and throughout our history some have organized and stood up and forced a reckoning with the lions of the world.  It’s a process, but with perseverance and determination injustices can be made right. 

Earlier this month an article appeared in the German media outlet Deutschland Welle (DW) entitled What to Expect From the World’s Sixth Mass Extinction.  Historically, mass extinctions occur over a period of about three million years and result in the loss of about three quarters of all species.  The current extinction, the first caused by humans, is being characterized by a much more rapid loss, with at least a million species expected to be wiped out over the next few decades.  Scientists are in agreement on what to expect if biodiversity loss continues at the current rate. Food insecurity, loss of soil fertility, water shortages, increased pandemics, all make the list, and injustices are firmly muddled in the mix.

We took another walk along the river, and this time the sun peeked through and the geese were honking jubilantly and the eagles were looking particularly regal.  There was a feeling of safety and normality, as if all was well with the world...