Time to Redefine Best Practices
This is the last picture I took with a blue sky. It was a week ago. That might not sound long but it truly feels like forever when you’re locked inside with the doors and windows shuttered. We’ve entered a deeper level of isolation, and it’s awful.
This picture, though, is heavy all by itself. This pile contains countless pieces of usable goods headed for the landfill. In the right corner, you can see a woman rescuing something from the heap. I asked if she found a treasure, and she responded excitedly that she did, “it just needs some TLC.” Arguably most of the pile fits that description.
These west coast fires, which are filling our Bay Area skies and beyond with toxic air, are making local and national headlines. Climate change’s role is increasingly (and finally) being highlighted. Perhaps, these fire scars will be the ones that for many calcify the connection between forest health and our changing climate. But this picture isn’t of a forest and nothing is on fire. Does concern for the climate apply to how we treat ordinary things? 100x yes.
A couple of simple climate rules: 1) climate change affects nearly everything and 2) its impacts are not equally distributed. Hence the need for urgency and justice.
As we know, every step of growing/making/selling/transporting/using/and disposing of goods has a climate impact, some steps more intensely than others depending on the product.
In short: the more we take, make, and toss the bigger the impact. One way to lessen that impact is by keeping materials in use for as long as possible. This bulky waste pile, considered a waste industry best practice, is an excellent example of this sanctioned cycle of disposability.
Who benefits from this abhorrent blindness to and wastefulness of resources, embedded carbon, and human labor: stockholders or stakeholders? Are we invested in systems that make us more or less resilient as a community, as a planet?
When the smoke clears and ash settles, will we recognize that though not all climate-related disasters look the same, they all reinforce who gets harmed most and first?
