the official grace & cello blog

in case you were wondering, sometimes i have to pull out those crazy long titles to honour henry fielding and his lovely novel ‘tom jones’ (… in which he was very fond of sentence-long titles for his sections, always providing me with a little chuckle before each chapter of high drama). sorry to transfer my age-old, personal jokes on you!

as for environmentalism and whether grace & cello is truly on the cusp, i present ‘exhibit A’ before the jury: quebec. it is where we live and work after all, and it is also a lovely example of what i am getting at. but wait, maybe that isn’t the best place to start … perhaps ‘exhibit B’ is a better introduction to my topic: biodegradable plastic cups for iced lattes at the local organic and fair trade coffee joint up the street, and the confusion this throws me into.

oh well, i’d feel odd about starting with B (being a by the book sort of taxonomist), so: 

A: quebec calls itself a nation most of the time (even though it is still ‘officially’ a province in the federation of provinces that is canada). this movement to call quebec a nation started with a group of very passionate, dedicated and intelligent folks way back in the 1960s and 1970s who had decided enough was enough. it should be said that these original separatists worked tirelessly and won a great many battles that were pivotal in defending the unique francophone culture found in quebec. without this work, it is certain that quebec would not be as vibrantly francophone (and therefore unique) as it today.

but times have changed, and today the younger generations seem to respond differently to the idea of separating from the rest of canada. many are more passionate about global questions, such as the environment … and these find that talking only of quebec misses the point that we are global citizens with more pressing issues, such as globalization, environmental degradation, and war-hungry profiteers gone mad. the younger generation that still believes independence is important for quebec (and there are many), see the way to get there and the issues at hand differently than the older generation who were responsible for getting the ball rolling in the first place. 

so, in quebec there is a lot of tug of war between the old and new guard regarding what is right, and where quebec should be going in terms of independence. the movement is divided, and at a cross-roads.

voilà ‘exhibit B’: biodegradable plastic cups for my organic, fair-trade iced latte (which we did not buy at starbucks, btw). such a little thing can really shake my confidence! let me say first of all that this was an emergency stop for coffee, and we were torn about getting anything at all because we didn’t have our go-mugs and we hate taking disposable cups to go. in a brilliant stroke of reasoning, we justified to ourselves that if we got an iced drink it would come in plastic, which we could recycle. not ideal, i know, but still a good second place in a pinch. then came the news that our cups were actually biodegradable…

so…explain this for me, the old-school environmentalist. am i supposed to throw this plastic-looking cup into the garbage? or am i to put it in the recycle bin? it seems that if it is biodegradable, it should go into the garbage since that’s the whole point, not to mention the fact that it’s a plant-based material that likely couldn’t recycle anyway … but seriously, can it be a good idea to throw thousands of biodegrable cups into the landfill each day just because we can? landfills are so overflowing that many biodegradable things have a hard time decomposing. in an era when garbage is our most abundant social invention, do we really need to create more garbage, even if it will eventually, one day, sometime decompose?

that was my gut reaction as i held my cup over the garbage bin, the scene startling to the eco-nerd in me … i couldn’t remember the last time i had thrown a plastic vessel into the garbage! but, i forced myself to acknowledge that perhaps this was the better option. all the energy and fuel that goes into collecting and recycling goods is a toll on the environment and our city coffers. perhaps it made more sense to create things that just disappear when thrown away rather than collecting and recollecting goods ad naseum.

and there are many turns like this in the new eco-discourse that i find jarring: consuming to green the plant? or, plastic over cloth; dishwashers over hand-washing; and, biodiesel over not driving a damned car in the first place … the list goes on.

it seems to me that the environmental movement is changing, and sometimes i catch myself doubting the new tendencies. maybe the old guard in quebec has rubbed off on me a bit? perhaps i should go with the flow more and throw away biodegradable plastic cups at breakneck speeds without even a hint of guilt?

i don’t know if can go that far … i have to be honest! after all, one generation can’t do this stuff alone, right? it must be that the best ideas will come with a sort of blending and breeding of different worldviews and plans for moving forward. reminds me of the youth arts forum i was at last month. at one moment when things were getting very pro-youth, and leaning slightly towards ‘out with the oldies’, a very neat, wise man from some caribbean country reminded us that young people don’t live in the world alone, and we shouldn’t pretend that they do. the best future, he said, will be one we’ve all had a say in…

c.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 5:33 pm and is filed under eco-debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.