In the wake of a malady

Via ‘Silent Spring’, the worst that Rachel Carson does is to persuade honest inquisitors to surrender their desperation to assuage even the righteous hungers of humankind to an entity they did not, perhaps do not, yet understand. At the same time, via ‘Silent Spring’, the best that Rachel Carson does is to dissuade any persistence on the subject of harming one limb of nature and, somehow, not another.

[caption id="attachment_20950" align="aligncenter" width="440" caption="Rachel Carson and the cover 'Silent Spring'"][/caption]

Her discourse in the book is powerful and moving: Carson does not write with flair for the subject nor a verve born of conviction but with a deep sympathy for the environment. She pushes and pulls, being wary enough to tug at the common sense of her readers and wise enough to tug at their heartstrings as well, for the problem is one of both concept and technique. As she puts it, “Such poisoning of waters set aside for conservation purposes could have consequences felt by … everyone to whom the sight and sound of drifting ribbons of waterfowl across an evening sky are precious.”

After all, there is nothing to hide on the subject—not yet anyway until one realizes Carson's complaints are insular—justified but limited in their scope, as if struck by the horror, Carson cannot go farther than mourning our losses.

Carson does not begin where others would have begun, whereto others, eager to drive at the heart of the malaise, would have asked their readers to follow; her first steps are at the threshold of the malady. She seems aware that in order to seek the most desired remedial measures, her readers must sustain their convictions.

She then weaves together a portrait of the global ecosystem: the endurance of pesticides like DDT, chlordane, parathion and others, their ceaseless journey from the farmland to the subterranean water reserves, then the heinous transcendence into remote wells and creeks, into the fatty tissues of cold-blooded beings and thereon a biological magnification that works upward viciously into the food chain and upon the fertility of sunlight and the nitrogenous air to synthesize deadlier chemicals.

Then comes the symbiotic relationship between the creatures in the soil and their germane host, the fervent burrowing of the earthworms and their vital role in sustaining soil composition, bacteria, fungi and algae as the agents of decay that, despite their microscopic sizes make possible "the vast cyclic movements of chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen through soil and air and living tissue," and ultimately the delivery of our crimes from the skies as acidic rain, abetted in its efforts by indiscriminate aerial spraying.

In her celebration of the resistance of the insects—of the Clarkston area and the Yakima and Wenatchee valleys, of the codling moths, blue ticks, lice, and Anopheles and Culex mosquitoes—and the apt quotation that Carson chooses— “rumblings of an avalanche” by Dr. Charles Elton—she is selective and circumspect at once. This stands as well for the retaliation of the dragonflies, lacewings, yellowjackets, gall midges, spider mites, muddauber wasps and mantises—inversing as they do our efforts to keep insect populations down. As an introduction to the subject, the book is invaluable, but as a suggestion toward modeling future action, it is a proselyte: since it was first published in 1962, the world has come a long way in identifying harmful substances and some way in taking measures to curb their use. The summarized and metaphorical “gunk” of her description—the myriad effects of those narrow-mindedly conceptualized chemicals and techniques—is no longer all that mysterious.

If anything, Carson advises complete isolation from the “great reservoirs” that we have spawned the past, the removal of human contact from the oceans of carcinogens we have used indiscriminately in a battle against the environment that was, from the first step, misguided and unnecessarily desperate. To whit: “The world was [at the turn of the century] full of disease germs, as today it is full of carcinogens. But man did not put the germs into the environment and his role in spreading them was involuntary. In contrast, man has put the vast majority of carcinogens into the environment, and he can, if he wishes, eliminate many of them.”

Man does wish to eliminate all of them, but he does not know how—which is not the same as reluctance: that is the new problem that is plaguing us, as is evident also from the measured and confused steps he is taking to mitigate the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions. Has Carson considered posterity? Where are the questions on other excesses such as population growth, capitalism, and market opportunism, the role of natural disasters, exported blights and accidents?

It could be unjust to imply that her indictment is of civilization itself, but such is the risk she runs without addressing the some-adverse and some-insurmountable roles that many of those, and such as those, entities played in shaping the disasters that the pesticide and fumigation industries profited from. Those decisions were not made in a vacuum consisting solely of the need to assert human superiority—and she shouldn’t have suggested them to have been as such. Limited exposition is, by far, more dangerous than a full eclipse.

It will be an achievement proper when, some years from now, Rachel Carson’s discourse is remembered only for the ensuing mobilization it effected for, in that sense, there will be no more careless experimentation. The world has changed and the forked paths she delineates about at the end of the book are gone, there are new problems and there are new solutions, and most of them, if not all, are founded upon the creativity and accountability she begs for.

Its task accomplished, it cannot aspire to stay in its entirety nor in its original form. ‘Silent Spring’ is not and will never be an enduring classic, nor will it ever afford an atavistic resurrection. It is a gem of the past, a star in the night sky that becomes one of many shining lights after its unprecedented discovery.

Afterlife of the Kyoto Protocol: A case of development as currency

The Kyoto Protocol will expire in December, 2012, almost exactly a year from today. Its legal bindings will collapse and remove all restrictions on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions it currently places on the 64 countries that ratified it in 1997.

Then, if an apparently weak conscience can be disregarded, and many believe it can, then the only thing standing in the way of ourselves and a future that is environmentally secure and free from the threat of extreme weather events is the adoption of a self-imposed and self-regulated system. A system that plays its part in ensuring the world as a whole has cut its GHG emissions by 50 per cent in 2050, a system that requires no confidence that other countries at least have the intention of doing the same, a system that faces no legally-backed sanctions if it releases alarming amounts of pollutants into the air.

The inherent comedy is evident.

The one recourse of any appreciable moment remaining to mankind before the Kyoto Protocol dissolves is the COP17 in Durban, South Africa. Being the 17th conference of the 194 countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the talks will host 15,000 members of state, mediapersons and other dignitaries to discuss the all too familiar problems before them: the different obligations of the rich and the poor, who is going to help the poor incentivize green growth, conservation of forests and funding for the development of clear energy technology.

[caption id="attachment_20842" align="aligncenter" width="593" caption="A march by locals outside the International Convention Center, Durban, South Africa, where the COP17 is underway. (Image from The Telegraph)"][/caption]

Ever since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, relations between the United States and the rest of the world have been tense: because the USA did not ratify the protocol, it did not find its emissions capped by an internationally binding agreement that its trading partners had decided to abide by. An important case in point would be between the USA and the duo of India and China.

On January 1, 1989, the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer entered into force with a heartening 196 signatories pledging to phase out and eventually eliminate chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). It found renewed interest each year for 10 years after it was effected, and in 1999, after the ratification in Beijing, its goals were replaced by the goals of the Kyoto Protocol.

Consequently, an equal amount of interest was expected from national governments in the new protocol. However, because the focus shifted from process regulation to goal regulation, i.e. from the elimination of CFC- and HCFC-emissions to the strict limit on any kinds of emissions overall, the United States decided to give the ratification a skip. At the same time, because it felt obliged due to environmental concerns as such, its government called for a drop in emissions from the international community - especially from India and China - in a hypocritical approach that found scant purchase from all fronts.

While some would believe the justification of such a call pointless and, at worst, irredeemable, it does merit a consideration of the terms of the interface between whatever treaty is fortunate enough to be the successor and the Kyoto Protocol. At first glance, the Protocol fails to take into account that national emissions in 1990, which respectively defines the subsequent cap for each nation, were uneven in various ways. In 1990, East and West Germany unified to become one state after which East Germany's emissions collapsed. Germany, therefore, took the opportunity to take credit for this drop in emissions even though what was West Germany began to step up industrialization. Australia, on a similar vein, had extremely high land clearance rates in 1990, and despite an emerging sentiment in the country to cut back on emissions in the following years, the Protocol in 1997 allowed them an increase. The same goes for Iceland.

[caption id="attachment_20845" align="aligncenter" width="593" caption="Per capita emission in Iceland"][/caption]

By not gauging anyone's contribution to the climate change mess based on net current emissions, the Protocol became a proxy for disguised industrialization. As has been mentioned earlier, it completely retrogressed economically powerful beneficiaries like the United States and Canada to a pre-Montreal Protocol stage.

Since the prevailing consensus amongst attendees of the COP17 is that a legally binding agreement will not be reached before 2015, India and China will want to use the interim period to step up industrial growth or, in other words, industrial emissions. In the same span, the United States will look to garner sufficient political support that it currently lacks to curb climate change (this after Obama's cap-and-trade proposal flopped spectacularly in the US Senate in 2010).

One way or another, scientists and researchers believe that things are going in the wrong direction, but at the same time, the expectations of countries such as those of the European Union from the United States seem to pose an unnecessary hindrance in the way of developing countries enforcing their demands on the United States. This, in turn, comes with the reasonable assumption that developing nations should indeed have more of a say in the matter.

For instance, since the sanctions imposed by the Kyoto Protocol in case of failure to comply are weaker than domestic laws in almost all ratifying nations, the EU fears that the US will attempt to take advantage of this leniency. At the same time, India and China, which are expressing some willingness to ratify a successor protocol if the US is willing to, too, face the risk of even tighter regulations of their emissions simply because the sanctions of the successor will be strengthened to leash the US. The question is: is suffering domestic action a parameter for evaluation at all? If anything, a special clause must be put in place instead of attempting to curb sovereign autonomy. Better yet, the developed nations must unite separately before coming to the negotiations desk.

At the end of the day, the principle cause of any problems that have to do with a delay in enforcing a new protocol is the employment of development as currency: with developed countries on one side, developing countries on one and the underdeveloped countries left to campaign for a cause of their own, unity seems hopelessly distant. The solution lies in the primary failure of the Kyoto Protocol: instead of basing future action on historic development, it seems only prudent to base future action on future development. Global trade and other strategically relevant programs must be tied in with processes that work toward curbing climate change so that clean and sustainable energy stands a chance to become the new currency - which is what those at Durban this week are looking for.

If those at COP17 feel that development as currency is a legitimate position to begin with, then negotiations are bound to be doomed. Instead, much hope lies with restructuring development so that it is strutted by environmentalism as a developmental entity and not by environmentalism as a socio-economic entity. Yes, capitalistic ideals will seep in, but the world is seeking to do a volte-face on the past, and that demands a volte-face on our past attitudes as well.

Flight of the magus

In the beginning, there was a Universe, lush and abundant, a paradise inhabited by the opportunities of boundaries and ragged pathways and winds that blew this way and that without giving pause, a world where a man could understand wakefulness and fatigue both, satisfaction and deprivation both, because it was a world that put his will to the test again and again. With the assistance of a memory that moved forward whilst its head remained turned to the past all the time, men knew where they did fall and where they did sprint under the light of dispassionate stars, and within the strange bounds of disappointment and elation men understood who they were, as if they had looked into mirrors and seen faces, as if they knew what the world knew of them.

A time came when the world began to fade, when the ground was no longer what those who still walked upon it had known it to be, when lay dust was picked up by the raging winds and whipped into the skies above, when ultimately the moon was red and bleeding. Trees began to be stripped off their leaves and rivers flowed far from their courses, gouging valleys and gorges out of the world's floor, and before long, mountains lay prostrate on the ground, flattened into a dismal stretch of boulders and soil that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ugliness they had boasted of before. Men were beginning to lose direction, walking in search of what they knew was dying and dying in their presence and yet, both knowing and unknowing what lay beyond the horizons once guarded by an old face of nature: they strayed into unknown territories that contained no borders, no sense of progress but the moon and the sun that traversed the skies for ever and on.

The unwillingness to embrace fatigue against the threat of permanent change, the hopelessness that consumed victory each time they looked behind their shoulders to a world they knew had once been, men kept walking. It was akin to toil, nay, it was toil itself, but the memory of the world's knowledge moved them into newer lands. The Universe was closing in around them, bringing them closer and closer to their brothers; they constantly found themselves in each other's company whether they turned north toward the cold or south toward the warmth. And when hope and will began to walk together, to take measure of the treacherous plains stretching before all their eyes, they were one in murdering an identity that had once existed, that had once known walls. Where did the walls go? Who pulled them down? Why did the world have to fade at all?

The answers lay in the hidden memories of their feet, beneath their leathery, distance-worn soles, in the pedestrian muscularity of their shins and knees, which could still recall the thousands upon thousands of miles that had been tread: the world had changed to change man with it, and significantly yet, had changed because it knew the face of man thoroughly and withdrew its restraints and laws, its pervading sense of order, to a womb within itself, so they may gestate their until the day came when man would be lost again, so that the face he had befriended would fade and recall the Universe to its original duty, to a preternatural body that would nature nature. It was a cycle that lasted for days one time and centuries on another, but the cycle moved through space, time and the mind, where everything else took proper shape.

Almost forgotten between these two entities, perpetually depressed under the burden of their strange purposes, lay a span of time incredibly short and hungry, as if a fold that had been fighting a tenuous battle against whatever held it there, be it hope, be it will, or be it a memory of ice. What lay there, so, was a monster, a beast brought to lay dormant until a moment was upon some chosen ones by an expedient force from history, burgeoning with power and, therefore, open intentions toward dissonance, it resounded like echoes from the future, seeping into the present through impudent doubts. Some called it the Oldness, others the First Form, the aging skein of the first mountain that man had clomb, impugned within its soul the first evening they had spent together, man and nature, loss and possession, light and shadow, a memory upon which was founded a necessary darkness that sought to steal faces.

There was no way it could resurface and survive; its place was within the earth whence it had first come, and it had returned, awaiting the return of a friend, so that, once more, they may know the embrace of the earth.

Trinitite throne

I waited and watched. It was a few minutes after dusk, and the skies had already turned a deep shade of indigo, all pretence of blue and orange and pink shed quickly after the sun's departure from the heavens. The green of trees was gone from the world, as the green of trees had always gone from the world for centuries before the moment I knew would come soon.

Bough and bark was bathed in a strange darkness that was not merely the absence of light; it was a darkness of and by itself, a monster that spawned other terrors in the minds of those who knew fear and other doubts in the minds of those who knew loneliness. It consumed everything, even my home from where I looked. I was out of matches, or I knew could've scared the monster away, chased it into the corner whence it had come, no longer to pour out from my past as the echoes of my youth.

I looked at my watch again, making sure I was on time and wouldn't miss the awakening. The lamppost, the pillar of metal that had my unwavering attention, was a few hundred paces away from me, straight ahead, its crown lost in the thick foliage of a banyan planted by the side of the road. Cars passed by beneath the tree, their eyes shining light into the black blanket that buffeted their forms, they pushed through with an industrial groan into the future that awaited their arrival.

It was either war or hatred they drove into, but it was a future of some sort nonetheless, and when cars and other wheeled things went into the future, they went into the future with hope. A hope that things would be different, or a hope that they would make them different. One way or another, the cars passed by, momentarily caught in my present where I would consider them thus and then let them slip out through the corner of my eye.

All this while, I was only seeing ahead, I wasn't looking, I wasn't watching. But now, I watched because I could see a dull amber glow come on amongst the banyan's leaves, and there was light suddenly as it blossomed steadily to become white, whiter, and soon, the blackness around it was gone. The monster was gone from my world, and the dark green of the leaves became discernible from even this distance, even though they possessed the penalty of thieving from the brilliance of man and were tinged with dirty orange.

No matter, though: let there be light, said man, and there was light. God, I knew, would have been taken aback at that moment because man had usurped him, brought in a darkness upon himself that only he could save himself from, and the need for godliness was no more. He was his own anti-particle, a bringer of light and in its shadow, a vast darkness, a creator and destroyer of worlds and worlds—trapped between the two layers of a consciousness that was turning in on itself.

Further down the road, there was a bridge, a flyover, and it was painted entirely blue. Like the lamppost, it reminded of something else other than itself, a representation that so far away from the real so as to be entirely different, a nature removed by Sputnik as much as to be art. The construction reminded of a sea I had seen somewhere, either beyond the shores near my home one night or on a television scream, a sea of orange and pink and blue and yellow and cyan and black like the contents of a lava lamp spewed on a sheet of Alamogordo glass, its bomb-hewn surface gently breathing radiation.

Tens of lampposts flanked its long, serpentine body, and even though some of its scales peeled away with a nostalgic redolence, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. Maybe because I also thought it was human, the way it breathed, the way it swallowed, digested and spat out, the way it stood still between the past and the future, basking in the glory of its creator that was also man.

My environment was not of divinity's making but of its defiance’s, a new formless world ridden with confusion and scepticism, full of windows that opened into walls and doors that opened onto the ceiling, but still filled with people trying to fix things. A mound of clay that was still slightly wet even after the child's hands had massaged it into an ugly lump.

There was hope, a hope that the day bridges would be taken for granted, the day lampposts would be turned off to make way for an equalizing darkness, the day I would walk amongst the tress and the forest's animals and birds and not find the raging wheeled in my presence, man would regret what would have befallen him by then, a world bereft of his intelligence and a world of surrender.

There was hope that the day man learned of his antithetical character to divinity and the destructive deck waiting to be dealt between his five fingers, man would also learn he could chase god away from his kingdom and fashion in the beast's place a throne for himself. There was hope that man would sit upon that throne.