Mercy, Mercy Me (Human Ecology)

by Scott McNutt

Sometimes when I am gulping beer, sitting opposite Hellbender publisher Rikki Hall and other ecologically inclined persons, I wonder, Are they going to whip out daggers and stab me to death?
Because I am ruining the environment. It is a steamy morning in July as I type these words on an electricity-eating computer. As I type, the atmosphere-heating, air-polluting clothes dryer is running, and I relish the air blowing from the equally power-hungry central-air unit cooling our woefully energy-inefficient house. Ceiling fans and box fans clatter and whir (I said the house was energy inefficient, right?), while drifting from downstairs comes the murmur of one of our many TV sets. Although lost in the sea of competing sounds, also droning from downstairs is the power-sucking dishwasher, probably not nearly as full of dishes as it could be. Lights have been left on unnecessarily in every room. The kitchen garbage cans (yes, we have kitchen garbage cans, plural; we excel at nothing so much as garbage production) hold many beer cans and a couple of Styrofoam to-go containers from last night’s dinner of non-free-range chicken wings.
So, as I ponder all of the ways my unsustainable way of life hurts the environment, I cannot help but wonder, Are you, the reader, going to ram me with your gas-miserly Prius next time you see me?
Actually, only by extension am I wondering about whether you will kill me for not caring about the environment, because what I am really wondering is how I came to not care about the environment. Because I used to care.
When I was growing up, in perhaps the most environmentally incorrect city in the world, Oak Ridge, Tenn. (Motto: “Don’t Mind the Two-Headed Salamanders”), we actually did environmental-type things. The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, my elementary school class celebrated with each student planting a sapling. They probably all died from the mercury in the soil, but we were trying.
The next year, we saved money to help the bald eagles, our national symbol, that were endangered because DDT in the environment was softening their eggshells, causing them to break prematurely. For our efforts we received a letter from a grateful Department of the Interior thanking us and a certificate proclaiming we had saved two bald eagles from extinction. After that, it was recycling drives. Then, city-wide neighborhood clean-ups. Our communities were turning each of us into tiny, earnest Rachel Carsons.
Filling airwaves and our heads in those days were ecologically and socially conscious songs like “Mercy, Mercy Me” (The Ecology), “Indian Reservation” (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian), “War” (What Is It Good for?), “In the Year 2525” (Exordium and Terminus) and “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” (I Got Love in My Tummy). Ok, the last one not so much, but it was filling my head.
They may have been naïve, they may have been silly -- heck, most of them were bad -- but they felt sincere to us.
And there was the heartbroken American Indian wandering all over the nation, right in front of our eyes on the TV set, always getting trash thrown on his feet and weeping over what had been done to his ancestral land. The part was done by a guy billing himself as Iron Eyes Cody, which was good enough for us. Of course, his real name was Espera DeCorti, and he was born of Sicilian immigrants in Kaplan, La. But we did not know that then; and we would not have cared if we had! When Iron Eyes cried, we all shed a rusty little tear.
And we conserved energy in my household. Winters we shivered, summers we broiled. In summer, we had one big window-unit air conditioner that, when turned on, simply rattled ineffectually at the heat, because we only turned it on when it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. That was the house rule, and, of course, my father decided when the rule was invoked.
I challenged Dad on it one year, and he allowed me to go break an egg on the front walk. Not only did the egg not fry, but when I finally gave up, it had cemented itself to the pavement, and I sweated myself to saturation trying to clean it.
Then, staggering under the weight of defeat and soggy shorts, I trudged back into our broiler oven of a house. The kicker: While I was out there melting into the walk, dad had turned on the air conditioner.
I digress. The point is, there were many elements influencing my generation to care for the environment and conserve resources. Then it just…stopped.
It seemed like one day I was surrounded by adults devoted to preserving the environment and conserving resources and teaching me to do the same. The next, they were worrying about where they would get their next gallon of gas. Still young, I did not understand, but it was around then many of us lost the will to care. Maybe it was the ludicrous sight of Jimmy Carter putting on a sweater and turning down the thermostat on national TV that so disheartened us. At any rate, I was old enough to recognize a lost cause when I saw one. Although through my 20s and 30s, I made half-hearted environmental efforts, I never really recovered a passion for conservation.
And today, I fear my environmentally indifferent household is not unlike many households of middle-aged families. So, on this July afternoon when the atmosphere outdoors is like a sweat-soaked sock slapping you in the face, I wonder, how had it come to this? How did I, from such heady childhood beginnings, dwindle to such contemptible indifference as I crest the comfortable beer belly of my middle age and totter down to the sunken haunches of my dodderdom?
I didn’t have an answer as I was typing this. So I went downstairs to see what was on TV as I pondered more.
And my question was answered. Right in front of my eyes on the TV were garishly dressed figures writhing across brightly lit stages, emitting thunderous, murkily indecipherable music.
And filling my head were these thoughts: “Oh yeah. I am part of the generation that, as children, planted groves of saplings, and, as adults, cut them down for new subdivisions. I am part of the generation that saved the bald eagles but now encroaches on their habitats with our sprawl. I am part of the generation that started recycling paper in the 70s, but doubled paper product consumption in the years since. I am part of a generation whose response to the gas shortages of the 70s was to build bigger, less energy-efficient vehicles in the 90s.”
And finally, filling my head as I gazed dumbly at the TV set was, “I’m part of the generation that -- seriously -- thinks using enough energy to heat Norway for a week to send a bunch of environmentally unconscious pop stars to far-flung corners of the globe to sing cringingly unlistenable songs for a concert laughably titled ‘Live Earth’ is an energy-efficient response to global warming.”
I am of a generation that accepts symbol as substance. I do not know why we are like this; I only know “Live Earth” reminded me that I am part of that group. Like saying so many Hail Marys to absolve spiritual pollution, we purchase a few units of Green Power to erase the dirty stain of our gigantic carbon footprint. Or we hold an enormously wasteful concert to raise other people’s awareness of environmental issues. We never acknowledge we must change the way we live to keep living.
Well, I am acknowledging it. My lifestyle is unsustainable. I went wrong somewhere, and I’m too weak to change. We really tried to make a difference back then, but it is too late now. I know there are some, like Rikki and the others who produce this newspaper, who are not as hopelessly addicted to comfort as am I. So if you environmentally minded souls see me, please, have mercy. Do not kill me. Just give me a foot to the ass and save the planet for yourselves, despite me. The kicker? Tell me “Live Earth” made you do it.