Healing Our World Commentary: How Do We Decide on A Leader?

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

How Do We Decide on A Leader?
It May Be Easier Than You Think.

This earth spun of soil and sun,
Water and air for all to share,
Lives or dies by the work and play
Of every creature, every day.
-- From a Filipino Creation Story (Author Unknown)

Most people hate elections. With all the rhetoric, lies, misinformation and mountains of issues among candidates who look like they came from the same mold, how do you decide? I think it may be easier than you think.

C.A. Bowers, in his book "Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis" (State University of New York Press, 1993), states that the condition of our Earthly habitats should be the prime concern of our culture and should frame how we think about everything we do. I take this idea one step further - how a candidate expresses his or her concern for our environmental crisis will tell me how to vote.

A common sign at our beaches (Photo by Jackie Giuliano, Ph.D.)

This may seem an extreme position to many who have been brought up to view the environment as just another societal factor to be considered along with road construction, health care or tax reform. This is no surprise and such folks cannot be criticized for their perceptions.

Most of us have grown up in a culture that works hard to disconnect us from the web of life. Precious earth is called dirt and has to be washed off. Most animals are considered pests if they enter our homes and must be killed.

The natural world is considered unsafe and we are taught that the wild is to be feared. Cleared land is considered more valuable than a rich, vibrant forest.

We have been relentlessly raping the Earth for centuries and we are near the end of the line in many areas. Rapid industrialization and resource consumption on a scale never before seen in history has been taking place since the Industrial Revolution in the 1700's.

The buildup of toxic materials in our air and water and soil used in the endless drive to industrialize has deeply invaded our bodies. Many ecosystems and species cannot sustain even another four to eight years of the kind of abuse that a conservative regime will impose.

Weapons production is at an all time high (a small 23 ton nuclear explosion from http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/)

This may have been true for a long time in human history, but the Industrial Revolution eliminated this as an option. Machines can work exponentially faster at chewing up our Earth than a human with a plow.

The last 300 years has seen a level of environmental, ecosystem and species destruction that it would have taken many more centuries for a less technical society to achieve.

It is hard to imagine that it is ever possible to run out of time, but we are. Rainforests once covered 14 percent of the land surface of the Earth. Today, less than 6% of the Earth's surface still has rainforest cover and some say that these last remaining precious forests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Ninety-five percent of the forests in the lower 48 states having been logged at least once. Time is no longer on our side.

Large areas of our oceans are poisoned and lifeless and in some parts of the world, birth defects are a way of life.

Since the debacles of James Watt during the Reagan Administration when this Secretary of the Interior openly showed his contempt for environmental issues and captured massive media attention, conservative forces have gotten really good at keeping their environmental destruction below the level of most media attention. I preferred Watt - at least you could keep an eye on him and know where the battle lines were.

The conservative of today knows how to talk the lingo and distract us from what they are doing with promises of fairness.

This must end (Photo by Abram Brown)

Sadly, this is a relatively new concern for Westerners since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Recognition that cultural practices are not independent from a concern for the well being of the planet is a relatively new awareness in politics and goes back a mere 50 years or so to the work of Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner, to name a few.

Although you may not see destroyed ecosystems like those in popular science fiction movies like Blade Runner and Soylent Green when you drive down the street, the constant spread of toxic chemicals into our world for the last 300 years has seriously effected the life sustaining capabilities of habitats worldwide.

Television coverage of environmental disasters are so common that ozone holes, oil spills and species extinctions have lost their power to capture the public's attention.

A candidate who recognizes the fundamental role that the environment plays in our lives may be more likely to apply that awareness to other issues. A candidate, regardless of his or her party, who promises economic prosperity for the people while promoting an agenda of continued resource extraction at all costs cannot be taken seriously.

All the tax benefits in the world, whatever your income level, will be meaningless if we have no clean air to breath, safe water to drink, or soil in which to grow food. Time is running out for us all - especially the politicians.

RESOURCES

1. Be reminded of the routine destruction of our oceans at http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.asp

2. Read about the coming end of petroleum at http://dieoff.com/page140.htm

3. Read about acts of murder by oil companies in developing nations at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Boycotts/ShellNigeria_boycott.asp and http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Transnational_corps/DrillingKilling_OilNigeria.asp

4. Read about the destruction of native cultures by U.S. oil companies at http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/beyond_oil/index.asp

5. See air pollution from around the world at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3589/airpollutionaix.asp

6. The Sierra Club has endorsed Gore. See why at http://www.sierraclub.org/

7. A thoughtful discussion of election issues can be found at http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20001106&s=editors

8. Check out who the Friends of the Earth have endorsed at http://www.foepac.org/pacpresident.asp

9. The League of Conservation Voters has put out a comparison of the candidates on environmental issues at http://www.lcv.org/campaigns/endorsements/gore_comparison.htm

10. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them you want the conservative agenda challenged and our Earth protected. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.asp or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.asp.

[Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found wondering if it is too late. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at http://www.healingourworld.com]