A list of questions

Yesterday, I found myself sitting in Methods of Environmental Analysis (aka baby statistics and GIS). We were learning about chi-square tests, but I was in the middle of reading Endgame by Derrick Jensen, so I wasn't really feeling the abstract math thing. The basic premise of Endgame is that civilization is fundamentally anti-life and unsustainable, and that it would be impossible to maintain without pervasive, widespread violence. I've waited for a while to read this book, because it's the sort of thing you can't go into unless you've read a few of his other books and spent a lot of time thinking about our culture, the world and what sustainability really means.

But here I was, in class, and I find myself agreeing with his argument. Civilization is unsustainable and based on turning living things into dead things (this is called production, for all you econ majors out there). So, as someone who values life in most of its many forms, not just humans or rich humans, it seems like I have a moral obligation to end civilization.

That's a scary thought. I was thinking about what that would look like, what it would entail, how I could go about doing it and what we could replace civilization with if we ever get there. And I started making a list of questions, things I want to know and understand as I continue to figure out my role in the world and the fight for the living planet.

1. Do humans ever have the right to take the life of another living being for the sake of profit? Beyond killing to provide for immediate needs (ie. food), is it ever ok to build a dam or clearcut a forest?
2. What does a non-capitalist, non-exploitative economy look like? How do we incentivize good ideas in a non-capitalist system?
3. Is there any way to make human living sustainable and not based on killing living things without returning to the Stone Age?
4. How do we re-wild people? How do we convince them that this system isn't in their best interests without being condescending or paternalistic?
5. Could we develop closed-loop technology based on continual recycling of things that are already trash, so we could continue to have material goods without new resource extraction? Does the second law of thermodynamics make this physically impossible in the long run?
6. Should I support solar panels, wind power and electric cars now, knowing that ultimately, they're as unsustainable as coal and are just buying us more time?
7. How can I stop systematic violence effectively?
8. What do we eat? How do we grow it? How do we make up for the toxification of the total environment, the habitat degradation and soil erosion of the past centuries when we shift to completely local food production?
9. How can I know that I'm by far my happiest on Semester in the West, when I'm living outside and away from civilization, yet be reluctant to contemplate a future without television, electricity, central heating, iPods and the internet?
10. Is it enough for my life to be about food? Where is the line between seeing the problems I'm confronting as part of a much larger, destructive system and focusing on a small piece of the puzzle that I think I can actually change?

I don't know what to do with all of these questions, except to keep talking to people and trying to work out what I can do with my life. I'm ready to listen to the world around me, and I'm ready to think of change on a systematic, fundamental level. I'm ready to fight. And I hope that's enough to take me somewhere.