GLEANINGS
We are vulnerable but not powerless
All the madness of the world--the warfare, toxins and climate changes--are not out of our control, argues Beth Sawin. We do have options.

By Elizabeth Sawin, Sustainability Institute, December 2002

	"Seeing both the vulnerability and the possibility of our times -- that's what causes the anguish, isn't if? If you understand what is at stake and can see at least a few steps ahead toward safer ground, it's hard to watch the people around you standing still or even moving in the opposite direction."

Do you sense it too -- the recklessness of this moment?

How can people talk this way -- as though Deep Earth Penetrating nuclear weapons, unmanned drones, stockpiles of smallpox virus, and people exploding themselves on crowed street corners are solutions to something ?

As though the acid rain falling onto our forests and the carbon dioxide warming our planet are related only abstractly to our lives?

As though it is the price of progress that our breast milk contains PCBs?

As though nothing precious is vulnerable.

We all bleed and break. Can't we just admit that?

Whatever it is you love, it rises out of the secret dances of rock and ocean and microbes. It depends on the paths that clouds take as they float over the land. It depends on the life expectancy of honeybees, the fish that lay eggs in marsh grass, the quiet creation of soil.

We are the embodiment of vulnerability - we have everything riding on things beyond our control.

We are all made of lungs and livers, nerve fibers and muscle. So much that matters --music, Sunday dinner, a baby's grin - depends upon the molecules of our body doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. Five fingers extending off an embryonic arm. Heart valves being sculpted just so. A certain number of cell divisions and no more. It all has to work pretty well before music, or sonnets, or even a grin can happen.

For all the dazzle of biotechnology we are nowhere close to understanding such things. But we do know enough to see that our bodies are not prepared for some of the chemicals we've created -- the ones that damage DNA, the ones that confuse hormone receptors. We are vulnerable in the face of this new chemistry of our own creation.

With missiles that can send devastating weapons hurtling across oceans and viruses that can be released on the subway we face another vulnerability, of course -- the chance that someone crazy or desperate will launch something flaming or crushing or infectious in our direction.

I don't expect a world without tragedy and loss. But the warfare, the toxins, and the changing climate are not out of our control. They are not like a tornado or grandmother's inoperable cancer. They are like the house falling in because you didn't patch the roof, or grandmother growing frail because there is no one to cook her supper. It's not a matter of destiny; it's a matter of will.

We need the Earth's climate to stay more or less constant. Well, there are things human beings can do to increase the chances of this. We know these things. Switch from coal and oil to solar and wind power. Invest in public transportation.

Our bodies can't handle heavy metals or dioxin? That may be true, but we can reshape our chemistry in nature's style and use the fibers, proteins, sugars, polymers, and dyes that life has already "invented".

None of us are safe while governments and factions use violence as a tool. We don't have to be trapped in escalating violence as more and more powerful weapons end up in the arms of more and more volatile leaders. We could shift our priorities, invest in peacekeepers, negotiations, and the enforcement of international law.

We are vulnerable, but we are not without options. Seeing both the vulnerability and the possibility of our times -- that's what causes the anguish, isn't if? If you understand what is at stake and can see at least a few steps ahead toward safer ground, it's hard to watch the people around you standing still or even moving in the opposite direction. It's hard not to wonder if the world has gone mad.

But, if you are willing to look at our vulnerability you also get to see the miracles. You understand the fine line we walk. You hear it in the perfect heart valve pumping away when you press your ear on your daughter's chest. You see it in the spring when the same gentle warming wakes up the pollinators and opens the apple blossoms. Knowing that a climate change could disorient the apples or the bumble bees helps you see the wonder of their partnership in the first place.

If you are willing to believe that we could live in different ways you have the chance to discover them, little by little. You get to have butternut squash cooked in a solar cooker on your doorstep. You get to try in your own relationships to resolve conflicts the way you hope they could be resolved across the world. You get to teach your children how to light a fire in the woodstove with logs that they helped you to stack.

Butternut squash and apple blossoms don't sound as though they will change the world. But in my mind they stand for our only hope -- people who can look straight at our vulnerability and still see our power.

Previous articles by Beth Sawin

• November 1, 2002: Ending The Race To The Bottom. All it takes is a few corporations and governments who agree to reward good stewardship and penalize agribusinesses which destroy biodiversity or degrade water quality.
• October 1, 2002: Dead Zone Economics. When are we going to start making healthy soil and clean water part of the economic equation for successful farming?

Beth Sawin is a mother, biologist and systems analyst who lives in Hartland, Vermont and works at the Sustainability Institute. Contact her at bethsawin@vermontel.net to receive a monthly column on systems and sustainability.