Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

You know, this blog, and my work, is about ecological hope.  I call it that on purpose, because dealing with these issues can be so grim.  It is hard to be messenger for the news that we have an extremely difficult future immediately ahead of us if we don't change our behavior right now.

Personally, I am tired of watching us on the news putting gas in our cars, sitting in heavy traffic, all the while saying, yes, it sure is expensive to drive this year.  What counters my hope over and over again is that we won't change our fossil fuel, car-obsessed habits even as gas prices rise, as reports are put in front of our faces over and over again about the looming crisis. We have reached peak oil, or are about to. There is nothing that will replace the cheap gas that fueled this sprawling, mobile US lifestyle. 

Some 38 million of us took to the roads this weekend (not me, no way, nothing fun about traffic jams and the crowded outdoors).  We're not intimidated by these prices at all.  We just keep driving straight on towards the crunch (do check this link for a very clarifying articulation of the reality of peak oil in the context of global politics).

It is boring seeing TV journalists put a microphone in front of a SUV driver at a gas station and to hear the driver say, "It cost $70 to fill it up.  Isn't that a terrible thing?"  No, the SUV is terrible.  Not having mandatory gas mileage for our vehicles is terrible.  Insisting on these unsustainable lifestyles is terrible.  Adding these carbon emissions, breathing ozone-polluted air this summer — that's terrible.

So what will stop us?  only the worst case scenario?  What?

And how will we prepare our kids and grandkids honestly for the future when we are not willing to witness to them our willingness to change, to give up a few things, to cut back, consume and pollute less, work in our communities and our political culture to alter the way we live?

Love the earth, don't beat it to death.