Under The Same Sun: Recycle Your World

« Zarqawi's Bombmaker | Main | Green Neocons »

January 27, 2005

Recycle Your World

Zeynep dropping in...

I am finally rewarded for the fact that I carry my laptop around everywhere, lugging a large backpack in Brazil's summer heat as I traverse the many miles that make up the territory of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. I get to have Internet access without the two hour wait and 15 minute time limit imposed on those who skip around carrying only a water bottle.

These meetings simultaneously depress and inspire me. The number of meetings is enormous, the range of subjects bewildering. The large meetings are practically useless, even when translation is provided. What will anyone get done when a thousand people are crowded into a tent, while the few luminaries speak into microphones? On the other hand, there is something uplifting about being there with so many people. And some of the issues are so big and important that it's hard to imagine the meetings would not be so big. The obvious solution, lots of small early meetings which would send delegates to a larger meeting, would not be acceptable to most people here because they would rightly point out delegation is one of the ways power is stolen away from people. Yet, the non-delegation approach does not seem to result in empowerment either.

The smaller meetings can be quite amazing, the ones that draw something between 20-50 people. There is room for dialogue and interaction and mutual learning in a very unique setting, as participants really are from around the world. Yet, we face such huge problems --climate change, war, poverty, AIDS-- that interacting 50 at a time is massively insufficient.

The most telling moment for me came earlier today, but let me first say something about the thoughts that lead me to it. There are explicit references to sustainability and the ethics of the meeting on the WSF brochures. "The world can only be changed by those who practice change," says the program.

Which, of course, is true in some fundamental way. But I think that sentiment leads some people to concentrate on individual behaviour, on personal lifestyle, while standing at the priviliged end of a greatly unequal, exploitative system.

When inequality is so vast and when a large portion of humanity is so mired in poverty, some of those token gestures are just that: tokens to make ourselves feel a bit better. One of my favorite examples is recycling: something many progressives in rich countries do almost religiously. On the one hand, I couldn't agree more. I try to recycle religiously too. On the other hand, recycle or not, any citizen living in the rich world has so much larger an ecological footprint that recycling hardly makes a dent.

On the average, a citizen of Bangladesh consumes 57 kilowatt hours per capita compared to 11,571 for an average American (1995 figures). The difference is an order of magnitude of about 200 times. A single American takes up the energy foot print of 200 Bangladeshis.

The WSF brochure says in its introductory paragraphs that "... the Forum is legitimized through the promotion of waste recycling." Of course, I totally agree that such a large gathering of people must make every effort increase sustainable use. Yet something bothered me about that sentence when I first read it and it immediately flashed before my eyes earlier this afternoon when I witnessed two small, barefoot children with huge bags go through the WSF recycling bins and gather everything in it into their huge bags. And run off to the next one very quickly, with a load almost equal to their size.

I went around later and checked many recycling bins; they are all emptied out. Some trash here is too valuable to be let go to waste. I also saw many people in Sau Paulo systematically go through trash can after trash can on the streets to salvage aluminum cans and plastic bottles.

My point isn't that recycling is pointless and should be stopped. This was just an opportunity to ponder how some acts to which we sometimes attribute great importance are very small and insignificant compared to the horrific levels of injustice that haunt the world.

Posted by zeynep at January 27, 2005 01:15 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.underthesamesun.org/mt-tb.cgi/377

Comments

Regarding the statement "A single American takes up the energy footprint of 200 Bangladeshis." Is electrical consumption a zero-sum equation? Is the average citizen of the U.S. depriving 199 Bangladeshis of electricity? If the subject were oil, then I would agree.
In the interest of disclosure, I live in the midwestern U.S. on the "priviliged end of a greatly unequal, exploitative system", and am too cowardly to leave my real email address.

Posted by: Alan G at January 28, 2005 10:03 AM

Don't beat yourself up, Alan. BUT: Do engage in some kind of social action, in addition to things like recycling that you may be doing individually. Most of us in the U.S. (not all, by any means, but most)are way up there on the worldwide inequality scale. I believe we have an obligation to work (struggle!) to narrow the inequalities. In the long run, that means a better, more secure, more satisfying life for the (former) "privileged" also.

Posted by: leslie at January 28, 2005 02:34 PM

Posted by: texas holdem starting hand chart at March 19, 2005 05:46 PM

Under The Same Sun

reflections on a world where the sun never sets

January 27, 2005

Recycle Your World

Trackback Pings

Comments

Post a comment