Yesterday was Earth Day. We've become accustomed to the Earth Day event in Grace-Ada Park, the teams organized to cleanup California beaches - with both beachcombers and divers involved - and calls for support of a whole variety of organizations. It seems like a natural occurrence, one that most everyone supports in one way or another. After all, who can complain about cleaning up litter and introducing little kids to native snakes, toads and other wildlife?

So I'd like to take you back to the origins of Earth Day - in April, 1970. Some of us remember that year. Some of us weren't even born yet. Thirty-six years is pretty long and a lot of things have changed. In 1970, the last Beatles album was released. Jimi Hendrix died and Mariah Carey was born. The Kent State shootings and the advent of fiber optics came in 1970. The population of Modesto was under 62,000. Cars, except for that pesky VW Beetle, still had fins. There was no such thing as unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters or concern for fuel efficiency. The EPA was unimagined and environmental legislation like the clean air and water acts weren't even on the horizon. Earth Day was an experiment - an attempt to get environmental issues into the public conversation and onto the national agenda. Its founder, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, considered it "a gamble." It proved to be a gamble that worked. Some 20 million people participated in the first Earth Day - about 10% of the population. It was unprecedented. And through the years since, our laws and our habits have changed a great deal.

Earth Day's message has been developed to include recycling, energy conservation and encouragement of alternative energy sources. Partly through the use of the Internet, international concern has organized and the 2000 Earth Day included the participation of groups in 184 countries. Those and subsequent observances added a focus on global warming and climate change. Changes in law and practice have averted the most dire of the early predictions of environmental disaster. Yet we find that great problems still face us. Earth Day is still needed - as much if not more than ever.

Ironically, the success of Earth Day may be a hindrance as well as a step forward. Too many of us seem to stay with admiring the animals brought out to show the kids, shopping for crafts using natural products, or admiring the photographs and posters of wild landscapes and animals. Or we let our anger at escalating gas prices come out in condemning oil giants and bemoaning the fate of the ordinary person. Maybe when we hear stories of greenhouse gases, glacial melting and violent storms, we figure that there's really nothing we can do. One of the critiques of those of us with environmental concerns is that we are bearers of gloom and doom. You might say that Earth Day orbits two poles - one the fuzzy replicas of wildlife creatures and the other prophesies that the end is near.

Somehow, we need to add a different approach, a more complex view. As Unitarian Universalists, we might have something of an advantage here, because we are more accustomed to considering several views, more used to recognizing the lack of a guaranteed solution. We're probably more comfortable with uncertainty than most folks. And we like to hunt for underlying principles that might serve as guides - though not really promises. We know the stakes are high. And even given the lack of a guaranteed outcome, we want to find ways that we can make a difference.

I've been thinking about all this somewhat differently since David introduced me to a book by Jared Diamond, which says that societies sometimes fail due to unintended ecological suicide - what he calls 'ecocide.' He says this involves eight processes, ranging from deforestation and resource depletion through population growth and increased per capita impact. All that fit into paradigms that were already familiar to me. But the book has an interesting subtitle: "How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Just for starters, I would not have thought that societies choose to fail! And I'm not alone in that, as the piece I read you earlier demonstrated.

Well, Diamond says they do. They actually make decisions that cause their own destruction. But it's not always that way; hasn't been in the past and needn't be in the future. Our future. We could choose to succeed. He got my attention!

Using archeological evidence from around the world and combining it with material from historic time and personal experience, Diamond identifies reasons for bad decisions. Some, like lack of information about soil characteristics and changes, or ignorance of examples from other places in the world, are less of a problem for us, with today's technologies. But others are very much operative in our own times. For example, we can fail to anticipate a problem. After all, no one really knows the future.

Perhaps worse, we can fail to recognize a problem that has arisen. Our lingering debate over the existence of global warming seems a prime example of this - one partly explained by the fact that it involves a slow change masked by a lot of fluctuation. You've heard the arguments about whether this or that example is within the normal range rather than indicating actual climate change. Even last year's hurricane season - when we used up all the names selected for 2005's tropical storms - saw TV broadcasts with weather experts finding examples of other years with severe storms. Was last season evidence of climate change, or just the occasional rough period? Yet a look at changes in glaciers and the polar ice caps makes it plain that this fussing around is irrelevant. There's no question about it. We are warming up.

Another reason for failure to recognize a problem is 'creeping normalcy' or 'landscape amnesia.' This happens when the problem develops over a long period and the difference from one year to the next isn't great. After a while, we forget what the situation used to be. It takes someone returning after a long absence to really notice. I'm a case in point. Growing up in this valley, I used to see the Sierras almost every day. We would watch the fall storm clouds and guess whether the peaks would be snow-clad when the weather cleared. We noticed when the last white patches seemed to be gone. The changes were right there, visible through our kitchen window. Nowadays, it's rare indeed to discern even the existence of mountains to the east. It's not that those who stayed here all those years don't remember, but it's not so shocking to them as it is to me, or others coming back after several decades.

Even when we recognize a problem, a society can decide not to try solving it. Diamond talks about "rational bad behavior" as a prime reason. At times, it's quite possible to advance our own interests by making the situation worse overall. Clear-cutting of leased forest land and the abandonment of mines without mitigation efforts are two examples. The individual or company is enriched and simply leaves the problem behind. Sometimes common resources may tempt us to take as much as possible, lest someone else get it. Or we can tell ourselves that the problem is real - but it doesn't belong to us. It's someone else's problem. They should fix it. In all these cases, bad behavior results in some advantage to us.

Then there's something called the 'sunk cost effect.' Things have gone badly and you've lost money or power. Do you take the loss and get out of the situation? It turns out that most people stay with what they've been doing, hoping that the situation will turn around. I'm sure you can think of examples.

Diamond talks about several other reasons people make bad choices, but one that seems especially relevant to us is the influence of religious and cultural values and traditions. People are often reluctant to change patterns that are established in their traditions. Those patterns are time-honored. Sometimes they have been brought along from homelands far away and dear to us. Sometimes our identities are bound up in them. And sometimes they are no longer helpful or even neutral. If we choose to maintain those, trouble must result.

However, there's another possibility. We can choose to change. Perhaps the most vivid example is the Chinese determination to reduce their population by controlling family size. Whatever we may think about their methods, we cannot deny that they made a deliberate choice to change their cultural traditions in order to address a problem. In the West, some churches still forbid birth control and many oppose abortion for any reason, based on traditional interpretation of the Bible. They hold that their belief is more important than addressing burgeoning population growth, equality for women or quality of life issues. It doesn't seem sensible to me. And western societies in general show a declining rate of reproduction - people are making their own choices.

We have other choices to make. Population growth is a serious issue, but per capita impact may be even more important. It's common knowledge that people of the first world countries, and particularly the United States, use far more resources than those in the rest of the world. Thus, we have a far greater impact. One of the Earth Day websites I checked noted that American vehicles produce more CO2 each year than all sources - that is, vehicles, manufacturing, heating and cooling, food preparation, and so on - all of them combined, in India. This despite the fact that the population of India surpassed a billion some time ago. When we make choices that reduce our use of resources, we take steps to lighten our huge impact on the world.

Familiar advice about ways to help our environmental quality usually focuses on individual action. One "10 Things You Can Do' list includes changing to efficient light bulbs, paying attention to the way you drive - and choosing a car that gets good mileage. We can moderate our thermostats and hot water settings, add insulation, use energy efficient appliances and conserve water. Buy organic or recycled products and choose green energy, they advise. These are things you have heard before. Maybe they are things you already do. And don't dismiss these personal changes. They add up. In fact, in the past 30 years, air pollution has decreased by 25% even though our energy consumption has increased 40% and our vehicle miles have increased 150%.

Perhaps the most telling on the list I'm quoting is the advice to "Go Minimalist." For here we are asked to change the American tradition and habit of consumerism. We are surrounded by messages urging us to buy new, buy fashionable, buy upgraded - and generally, buy more. Will we choose to turn away from those messages, that tradition of consumerism? Is this an example of a value with a negative effect?

Diamond, too, has a list of things individuals can do - but it's quite different. He talks about changing our value on consumption as a cultural challenge. But his individual list starts out with 'vote, write and talk.' In other words, be part of the conversation that can change our public policy. In that vein, he continues: buy, or don't buy, in accordance with environmental principles. And tell them what you're doing. It works. His examples include the way the purchase of wood certified by the Stewardship Council has resulted in much increased participation in that program and the way economic pressures applied toward South Africa resulted in the end of apartheid.

Then, he says, draw attention to company and political practices that affect the environment - both positive and negative. And pay attention to choosing the right time and place to apply pressure. A company that deals with the public will be more responsive to your efforts. What's more, they affect the suppliers and producers. McDonald's change away from the use of Styrofoam containers is a case in point. Constituents of a politician in a contested district are most likely to get a response. In fact, this might be an optimal time to press our representatives for increased fuel efficiency standards. It's a congressional election year, gasoline prices are soaring and even the President says we have to give up our dependence on oil.

The influence of religious voices is important, and I am glad to see it growing. UUs have long endorsed environmental responsibility. Increasingly, we are being joined by other faith communities. I was recently delighted to learn of a newly organized Evangelical group advocating for responsibility on global warming issues. People want to be reminded that values are involved in the choices they make in their daily lives and in the political arena. We know that all existence is interdependent, interrelated. Whatever affects part, affects us all. We need to be respectful and protective of that web.

Finally, we can support environmental groups and take direct action to improve or preserve our environment. The recent work to reclaim floodplains along the Tuolumne River caught my attention in that regard. Some of our members have been involved. They not only make a difference in our local riparian habitats, they set an example for others. It's an example that says our environment is valuable and we can do something about its well-being.

In all these things, we need to take a long view. The changes we make will not fix the problem next week or next year. We must be committed to persevering over many years. One of the patterns that has led to our present problems is short-sightedness. If we only care about what will happen within six months, a year, or "until the next election," we won't act in ways that protect our environment. Rather, we'll verge on ecocide. We seem, as a culture, to be sorely tempted to leave our children and their children a world damaged by our failure of vision. It's not right. And it doesn't have to be. We can choose otherwise. We can choose to change.

In its broadest sense, Earth Day is dedicated to encouraging choices that will help our society - perhaps our world - to succeed. All the issues are inter-related, really. Population increases and impact, deforestation and degradation of soils and watersheds, over-use of resources: each affects the others. Improvement on any one helps the others. And it's good news that our major problems are of our own making. We control the causes. And we can change. We have no guarantee of success, but we can make choices that make it more likely. We can make a difference. In more ways than one, "we must be the change we want to see in the world."

23 April 2006

(Copyright by Rev. Grace Simons. Contact the author for permission to use.)

This is one in a collection of Minister's Sermons. We also have a collection of Guest Sermons, a brief Welcome and Biography from Rev. Simons, and the latest edition of Grace Notes, a column Rev. Grace writes for our newsletter.