camp: Page, Arizona
context: This was written the day after we visited Navajo Generating
Station, which is the sixth largest coal plant in the country. I ended up
writing my final epiphany for the program about NGS. You can read it here and
see a video of me reading it here.
The
things we do and the scale we do them on completely defy comprehension.
Speaking about the environmental ethics of a coal plant seems like talking
about Hitler’s vegetarianism. This is ground zero for climate change; this is
where the battle will be fought and slowly lost. Does your ppm SO2
reading matter when the future of civilization it at stake?
But
it does. I know it does. Less acidic skies and rain and forests matter.
Community health matters. How many children get asthma matters. Those 545
full-time jobs matter for the Navajo. But it would still be cheaper to pay them
their salaries to not pollute. $52 million a year in payroll benefits seems
like a small price tag for one-quarter of Arizona’s emissions.
But
reality. Civilization. Seven billion and counting. Las Vegas needs water.
Phoenix needs water. Tucson needs water. And you need power to pump it there.
More people should live in Page, still more should live in Western Washington
or Vermont or never have been born at all. When does the planet and our collective
health start to matter? How far are we willing to go in our quest to postpone
our day of reckoning? The Second Coming seems easy by comparison. Jesus left us
a whole manual on how to live on earth. No one told us how to feed seven
billion people or raised cities in the middle of deserts.
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