Depressing: A Failing Strategy of Avoidance

Some people avoid the environmental subject because they find it depressing. So they don't talk about it ‹ like politics and religion, it has become taboo in polite conversation. They probably don't go to public meetings on land and resource use issues or write to their government members about subjects of environmental concern. They are unlikely to belong to an environmental organization. They may not even reflect on the ecological implications of their behaviour as consumers.

Really. What do they expect will come from this kind of avoidance?

The English poet, A. E. Housman (1859 -1936) had something to say on this rather delicate matter of avoiding reality. Written in response to the ominous years that finally culminated in World War I,Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff begins with the words of a critic who is chastising a fictitious poet for writing depressing material:

"'Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache....'"

So Housman replies for Terence with the following comments:

"Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world is not....
Oh, I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God know where,
And carried half-way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer...
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again."

Terence, it seems, has gleaned a valuable insight from his failed strategy of avoidance, and Housman summarizes this insight in the rest of the poem:

"Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good."

The parallels between a war-worried England and the looming environmental crises on our horizon ‹ please note the plural "crises" ‹ are close enough to be very uncomfortable. But beer, or avoidance, or feigned depression, or any other evasive detour around our looming environmental challenges are not going to make them go away. When we awake or come to our senses ‹ or in Housman's metaphor, drag ourselves out of a ditch after a night of happy oblivion ‹ they will still be there:

"The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew."

The "game", just as it was in Housman's time, is becoming deadly serious. Yes, environmental issues are depressing. But we have no choice but to confront them with all the intelligence, ingenuity and resourcefulness we can muster. This means difficult choices by informed and engaged people. And it means a kind of heroism that history has not previously demanded of today's generation.

Life has generally been good and generous to those who were born after the tumultuous years of one world war and then another ‹ they have lived in an age of seemingly endless promise and plenty. But circumstances suggest this time of carefree affluence and innocent consumption cannot continue in its present form. Is the global financial collapse of 2008 a harbinger of other troubles to come? The noted Harvard author and financial historian, Niall Ferguson, says in an interview (Globe & Mail, Feb. 24/09), "But of course this isn't a recession. This is something really quite different in character from anything we've experienced in the postwar era.... It's a crisis of excessive debt."

The accumulating financial debt ‹ living beyond our economic means ‹ also corresponds ominously to our accumulating environmental debt. In almost every area of ecology we examine, we have been doing more damage than nature can repair and taking more than nature can replenish ‹ our "ecological deficit" is now calculated at 25%. This, too, is debt. And foreclosure by nature will likely be far more painful than bad mortgages, crashing stocks and lost jobs.

Yes, the environmental subject is depressing. And yes, our first response is to avoid the unpleasant. But persistent avoidance eventually becomes pathological, a fatal disconnection from the world as the world really is. The "stupid stuff" in Housman's poem has a dark equivalence for us that we cannot afford to dismiss. However depressing, this is the undeniable reality of our age, a threat now requiring the focused attention and the bravest effort of each and every one of us.