Toward a Culture of Collective Responsibility

Warbler’s Wisdom is a weekly column by Jocelyn Hartley, our Creation and Justice Fellow from Disciples Home Mission and Green Chalice.

In past newsletters, I’ve included tips for simple actions we can take to reduce our daily environmental impact. Incorporating even just one of these actions into daily life is a rewarding spiritual practice. Taking the action each day reminds us that we are a part of the sacred balance of God’s creation. If you haven’t yet incorporated one of these actions into your life and are reading this, I encourage you to commit to one action right now, plan how you are going to make it happen, and keep a tally of your daily “streak” doing this action. (Some past suggestions: use reusable grocery bags, switch to the free web browser Ecosia, have a daily vegetarian/vegan meal)

That said, with the rollbacks on clean energy in the new federal budget, I am particularly weighed down by the impossibility of living sustainably in modern society. I think to myself:

I would go zero waste if I could go to a neighborhood store where I could fill reusable containers with food products, toothpaste, shampoo, etc.--

I would give up my car if I lived in a walkable city–

I would eat all organic, vegan, less-processed food grown with regenerative farming practices if I could afford it and could use all the time I currently spend driving to cook healthy meals–

I would compost back in Houston if my apartment complex had a space for a compost pile or if I could afford a composting service–

But the thing is, not one of these “ifs” is even close to being reality. So then I think: if I really want to live sustainably, it can’t be as a part of modern society. It can’t be as a cellist who flies around the country for auditions and summer festivals and gigs and who frequently prints mountains of sheet music. It can’t be as a daughter and sister and friend who has to get on a plane to see many of the most important people in her life. 

I do want to live sustainably, but like most people, I’m not yet ready to give up my entire life and become an off-the-grid farmer to do so. But I am also not yet convinced that this is what sustainability has to look like. There are SO MANY elegant solutions to environmental issues that humans haven’t tried. What if we required every factory, warehouse, and store in Arizona to have rooftop solar? What if people lived in buildings that housed multiple families, surrounded a common garden area, and were walking distance from their jobs and grocery stores, all while reaping the benefit of having a closer-knit community? What if we set growth boundaries on cities so we didn’t constantly destroy more wildlife habitat? Until we’ve really tried all the ideas out there, the jury’s still out on whether the current human population and its love for technology, art, and innovation are sustainable.

The link between these solutions is that they require collective action. And in American society, we are constantly being told that if we want something done it’s up to us and us alone. It’s our job to stop using plastic, our job to reduce electricity usage, our job to “save the planet”, whatever that means. We live in a culture of toxic individualism and exceptionalism: if we don’t achieve something we really want, it’s because we didn’t work hard enough.

So today I’m going to say it: I want to live sustainably. And I also want to be a cellist and intellectual who travels the world meeting people and learning new things. It’s not because I’m lazy or a failure or entitled that I want but can’t have all these things. It’s because our billionaire-run society has failed me, and every other person on earth who cares about birdsong, desert tortoises, clean water, or just a habitable planet. We have a problem staring us in the face and the folks running the show won’t listen to our pleas for them to do something, or even to just allow the rest of us to do something to save ourselves.

While I tend to our family’s native desert landscaping and cook my vegetarian dinner today, I’ll be saying a prayer that society does better.