What's Nature Got to Do with It?

Abstract

My congressional representative called a town hall meeting recently on the topic of global warming. He invited a panel of promi nent local environmentalists from which he wanted an agenda that he could take back to Washington. The first presenter was truly amazing-he trekked/kayaked/swam across the Arctic Circle measuring ice melt and pub licizing the rapid changes occurring due to warming temperatures. The analytic frame of fered by the rest of the invited experts was, however, disappointing: Although we were spoken to as the prime agents of change (It's up to us!), we were addressed solely as individualized consumers. Just as in Al Gore's Live Earth messages, I am being asked to change my light bulbs, soften my foot on the gas pedal (preferably on a Prius), and buy $20,000 solar panels for my home. The only place I was asked to engage socially with others was in the checkout line at Home De pot. I was depressed as much about the po lar cap melting as by this depoliticized dis course, similar to the one that drove the movement into the ground years earlier. Its resurgence, at least in this forum, views us not as political agents, but as consumers who should engage in social relations mediated primarily by commodities. If you want to stop the destruction of the planet, buy green! My district's remarkable African Ameri can/Muslim/anti-war representative cajoled us to think about the connections between climate change and income inequality, or anything that might mobilize others, such as his working-class African American con stituents from the North side. But the experts insisted that a saved planet will be good for everyone, especially the resource-poor com munities who will have even less to protect them from the coming deluge. Questions on the choices of U.S. industry and state policy makers that have fueled voracious petrole umand coal-based production were an The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transfor mation, by Sing C. Chew. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006. 293pp. $80.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780759104518.