The New Guilt

My friend, who greatly enjoys poking fun at my liberal tendencies, tends to send me news pieces that highlight the absurdity of some of my positions on things. In particular, he has seized on Global Warming and the growing hysteria surrounding it. He makes a very adroit observation that popular media and popular media consumption habits tend to greatly distort the facts surrounding phenomenon such as Global Warming. He often mentions disposable diapers as an example. Some of you may remember hearing news reports years ago about what overwhelming percentage of the world’s landfills would be composed of these ecological dirty bombs, and at the time, some of the reporting conjured images of streets in the near future filled with diapers and nowhere to put them because the landfills were already packed full of Pampers. He could very well have also mentioned Killer Bees. In 8th Grade I was ready to move to Canada because I was scared to death that Africanized Honey Bees were swarming my way. His point is valid; we have a natural tendency to make things bigger, more dire than they really are. Maybe it sells papers, maybe it gets attention of research dollars or government money, and maybe it feeds our need to have something to worry about.

The most recent article from him, see link below, deals with the high carbon footprint of eating beef. Due to the energy it takes to feed, transport, and cook and the by-products of all those things, Beef has a disproportionate ratio of pollution to nutrition. By eliminating beef, the article suggests we could cut emissions by significant amounts.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e36a67d49c1127a8c17cc38ed4a4c27e.211&show_article=1

While the research is interesting, I cannot help but find it tiresome. Does everything have to be viewed now from a pair of Carbon-Value Glasses? How far away are we from buying and selling things in a new alternate currency based on Carbon Credits? The goal of the Environmental Movement should not be to grind eco-responsibility into everyone’s face over every decision they make. All that will do is engender resentment and eventually the worthwhile message of conservation will fall on deaf ears. The goal should be, and it is in fact what is being achieved to date, is a raised awareness of Environmental Issues. Being more efficient, being more conservative of all of our resources is good corporate and good individual philosophy – especially in this economic climate. One could argue that common sense and the environmentalists have finally found common ground. Walk into a Kroger and see the number of people using canvas bags, look at the sales of CFL’s. (Although one could also argue we need a return to robust “Fuck It All” American consumerism – if just to lift is out of this current morass.) Regardless, my point is people are getting the message; let’s not nag them to death!

Academic funding is shifting more and more to “green” topics. Scholars who need papers published continue to find more and more obscure things to study, and the news media will pick up the juiciest ones - the more dire, the more sensational, the better. Polar Bears: Extinct In 10 Years! New Orleans: Melting Ice Caps and A Modern day Atlantis! Killer Bees Nesting In Millions of Disposable Diapers! And we will continue to eat it up, eager to feel shittier about ourselves and our world.

I have been puzzling over what drives this phenomenon. This collective need to feel bad about something. Or more specifically why did we all start caring about the Planet? When did a formally small cause, exclusively the domain of so called Hippies and Tree Huggers, become a middle class obsession? What makes a significant percentage of the population rise up and suddenly exclaim, “Oh we’re so bad, punish us! Tell me more about how bad for the Planet my actions are.” Why did all of the sudden people start caring about the Planet? Why do I see 30-50 year olds using canvas bags and buying Hybrids?

Then it dawned on me. Much has been made of the so called “generational shift.” We just elected a black man to the Presidency; the Boomers are stepping down and making way for Gen X or whatever we are. That ushers in all sorts of new things. It’s more than Obama taking the White House Business Casual. We’re going to put our fingerprints on this era in countless ways. Among the countless things we need, we simply must have our very own Guilt. Our Parent’s had Racism. That was OK, but we’ve always wanted our own thing. Besides, our work there is done, just look at who our President is. No we need something else, a new white liberal guilt for a new era.

I got just the thing…the whole world.