Holland

Zutphen, Netherlands
December 5, 2009

The only memories I have of the past forty eight hours are mists and blurs. Impressions rather than things of substance, cracked shells of sensation reflecting the shape of missing events. The dark cramp of the nighttime plane, the cold bite of Dutch rain, the warmth of coffee with the fire of liquor, the dense, sexual smell of boiled eggs. All mists. All shells.

We are spending the weekend in the Netherlands with Saskia’s grandmother. As I write, she is making lunch and singing Dutch Christmas songs. I look out the window at the city of Zutphen, which I have a hollow memory of exploring this afternoon. It is very old and very European. Cars here seem distinctly out of place. It is a town which has not lost the memory of carriages bumping down its red brick streets, of men with top hats and moustaches, of snuff boxes, of mesmerism, and of chandeliers. Bicycles are everywhere. An itinerant accordionist squeezes jigs outside the department store, someone else hammers a dulcimer by the supermarket. It is raining, but it doesn’t seem like rain when you stand in it. It doesn’t make you feel wet. There is an ancient warmth hidden in the dull, grey day, some form of pervading cheer. Surely it is the holiday.

In two days we will be in Copenhagen for the start of the conference. It’s all over the news, on the front page of papers in Spanish, French, English, German, Danish. Not like the coverage stateside. Everyone knows about it in Europe. Sometime in the mist of the last few days, I rode on a plane between two engineers, a Swedish fellow who is increasing fuel efficiency in diesel engines and Frenchman who works with oil pumps In the Canadian tar sands. Both were following the conference, it involved both of them directly. The Swedish engineer worked for a university, and was hoping that a strong climate agreement would increase interest in his work, increase his funding. The French engineer, on the other hand, is involved in what some people say is currently the greatest environmental travesty in the northern hemisphere. Naturally, he is hoping for a different outcome. He is just trying to make a living, he says. He should not have to choose between the welfare of the environment and the welfare of his daughter.

Because what choice is there? Given the two options, the immediate needs of a family always outweigh the very distant needs, even if they are just as dire. As long as the public holds the perception that such a choice is what is offered them, there will be no real progress on the environmental front. From that point of view, the green choice is always the wrong one. We must focus on coming to an agreement in Copenhagen which does not offer this dilemma to the world. There must be, instead of a “protect my family or protect the Earth” mindset, a theme of “protect my family by protecting the earth.”

This is an aspect of the new catchphrase floating around the COP 15 literature – Environmental Justice. Environmental Justice is the excellent idea that there should never be a dichotomy drawn between traditional issues of global justice (fighting poverty, hunger, and disease) and modern environmental concerns. I think I am attending every official UN event involving the concept, plus a few unofficial ones. Because it would be a fine day indeed if nobody had to choose between following anti-pollution regulations and laying off employees. Or between the destruction of wild places and proliferation of poverty. Or between monocultures of genetically engineered crops and allowing children to continue to starve to death in our nation and our world. Because those are all choices we face at this conference, in our lives. And they none of them can be answered with a clear conscience.

I hope to God that the concept of Environmental Justice is more than just an ideal, more than a mist or an empty shell. I hope there is substance, I hope there will be action. But as I currently sit, jetlagged and thunderstruck in a storybook city, I cannot tell what is real and what is not. But we will know soon. Our first lecture will be Tuesday, the second day of the conference. There will be countless others in the next two weeks. If there truly is a third way, if there are solutions that work for the good of all and the detriment of none, we will know. Maybe there are. And maybe I will hear them soon. But even if I don’t, even if there are no real ideas shown at the conference, that doesn’t mean none will ever come. Justice, environmental or otherwise, has a way of showing up in its own time for those who do not lose hope.

And hope is something that is never just a shell.

-Josh