River of Play

Unsustainable Arctic, Unsustainable You

A friend spent a late afternoon and evening with us a week ago, and I’d add that she’s a new friend, but pretty much all our friends up here are new friends, so the phrasing seemed redundant. We were talking about the ship poised off the west coast of Alaska that’s set to deliver diesel to Nome—a maneuver that will require the ship to run about a mile or so of pipeline over landfast ice to the town. We both started to giggle: what could possibly go wrong?

After we refreshed our tea, we started talking about sustainability in the far north. It’s clearly an issue because we can’t grow enough plant-based foods or supply enough fuel for almost any of us to live up here. Yet, here we are. And many of us are deeply concerned about the environment. So, really, what the hell are we doing up here? 

Not an easy question to answer, particularly if you look beyond the charisma of the landscape, which has both grandeur and subtlety—a particularly attractive combination, but not a sufficient answer to the question.

We decided to flip the question, though. 

When we lived in the lower 48, and a lot of us have come from somewhere else (really, it’s almost as bad as living in Atlanta), how many of us had truly sustainable lifestyles? What happened to us when we came up was that our attention became very focused on the illusions, and illusions get stripped away pretty quickly up here. This place is not a temperate zone, and when it’s forty-five below zero, you can’t just suck up your gut and brave the cold. No one can. You will die. Quickly. Brown bears and wolves live within walking distance, and you are a tasty and easy snack unless you’re prepared. Those are easy examples, but you can walk into a grocery store and tell immediately if the latest truck broke down on the way up. Or, for example, I couldn’t buy grapes today. Simply none were on the shelves. But how many times did I buy grapes in January wherever else I’ve lived and not given another thought to the supply chain?

That issue of the supply chain, and the very odd gaps that appear in stores, becomes the foundation of every choice you make up here. But of course it’s the foundation of every choice you make everywhere. Almost everywhere else, though, the chain is invisible, and that’s what frustrates those of us devoted to environmental issues. 

 

Designing Global Warming

Dana and I went to get new cell phones recently (thereby completing our move of resources up to Alaska—our phone numbers had languished as Nebraska numbers), and I had had a conversation fairly recently about issues surrounding anthropogenic global warming. Together, these topics had me thinking about teleology. 

Not teleology in the formal sense, but a more general feeling of “onward and upward.”

Since our families are not anywhere near the Arctic Circle, and our jobs require us to travel, we went with smart phones that are part of an international provider’s network instead of a local carrier. It’s easy to be seduced by the seemingly unstoppable implications of Moore’s Law—OMG a better camera! better reception! more…stuff! And we fell for the seduction.

As we were figuring out how to set up voicemail, it struck me that these phones are not the future. I mean, of course they are the future, but they aren’t what’s going to make life better, reset our economic imbalances, or solve the pressing issues of food and energy. The phones—and the technology they represent—are important pieces of the solution, but they are also, and perhaps equally, part of the problem. 

We speed along though, don’t we, without thinking about the issues. We might well need more energy…but why? We must upgrade the apps, design, and capabilities of our phones, microwaves, cat box systems, and so on. The idea of not moving forward seems against nature, against evolution. 
As if evolution was teleological. 

Teleology is our own, human, creation. Like money. Like justice, or fairness, or art. Any solution to global warming will rely in part on technology. It seems clear that we will not be content to give up our smart phones, Wii consoles, and movies on demand. It also seems clear that we will not be able power those devices by long-dead biological matter. What we need beyond focus and attention (which is to say, engineering) is an evaluation of our own interests, a better sense of our needs. 
When we come to the issue of needs we come to a dead end. Who ever wants to reconsider—or closely consider—our needs? And do you want to share your resources with people you’ve never met, on the other side of the planet, who might not understand you and your culture? But our technology won’t solve that problem. The technology has no design beyond its own, and the bigger engineering challenge is the larger design. But that design, that progress, always and only relies on us. 

To steal a phrase, we must be the teleology we want to see in the world. The re-engineering of our approach to our wants, though, looks to be much harder than building a multi-touch screen for your coffee table. And in a consumer society you simply don’t get the message to want less. I’ve learned some fun things to do with my phone, so I hope you’re better than me.