image by Schizoform

This is the second part of a guest post by playwright, actress, and activist Sarah Moon about how her new play on mountaintop removal coal-mining fits into the larger picture of creating a clean and just future. You can read the first part here. For more information on Sarah’s work, please visit http://www.nylovesmountains.com.

One of the things I’ve noticed most since I began this work is the constant need to renew one’s awareness. Many times I have grasped how my actions connect to environmental degradation and then lost that understanding, forgetting when it’s been convenient to forget. It’s hard work to remember all the time. It takes a force of will that most of us do not naturally possess. We would rather believe there is an easy solution that doesn’t require too much effort. I see so many band-aids, so much wishful thinking demonstrated in the popularity of “green” and “organic” products.

I also see the unpopularity of getting rid of your car or never flying or never using an air conditioner. The majority of us are only willing to change if change means merely replacing what we already have with an environmentally-friendly alternative: Biofuel for gas, corn-derivative cups instead of a plastic cups, recycled paper instead of regular paper, energy star A/C instead of regular A/C. The majority of people aren’t yet willing to give things up or to change the actual way they do things. Not willing to bike or take the bus to work. Not willing to reuse drinking vessels. Not willing to conserve water. Not willing to re-imagine the structure of our communities.

I have gone through the process of getting angry at this and being cynical. Now I feel more philosophical about others’ choices. I realize that no one is going to make external changes until they’ve made internal changes first. So you can’t get mad at a person for drinking out of a Styrofoam cup, it won’t help you or them. Instead of chastising and guilting people, you have to try to spread awareness of the effect of harmful behaviors so people will begin to choose different ones of their own accord.

And you have to keep renewing your own awareness so you can continue to set an example for others. It’s so much easier to make a sacrifice or a big change in your life when you can see that someone else has done it and survived. To hear that someone else went the whole summer without air conditioning or started line-drying their clothes makes you realize you could probably do it too.

It’s true that for most Americans, living sustainably means giving things up. There is a fear of loss, but people need to stop to consider what they are actually losing. Is what they are losing essential to their lives or to their happiness? The first step in the shift to a sustainable global society is a shift in our ideas about what life is.

In the West, our idea of life is dominated by having a lot of money and buying a lot of things. Our way of life is Consumerism. Through buying, we express ourselves, relate to others and even explore new ideas. Our drives to express, relate and explore are essential and good. However, they need to be channeled differently because Consumerism is a dead end. It requires massive resource consumption to make the products we are constantly buying and massive space for the products we are so quickly throwing away. This way of life, unchecked, yields an uninhabitable planet.

People forget that it is possible to live with no other resource but land, water, air, our bodies and the bodies of others. To survive, we don’t need commerce, electricity, government or transportation. Traditionalists get testy when this argument comes up – “I don’t see how it has to be one or the other!”—and in theory it’s true. But in practice, unless we change our current ways, it will be one—the one that is not essential.

Here we are, on the edge of survival, sacrificing the things we do need to survive—land, air and water—for the things we don’t. It is that black and white. Of course we can have technology and keep our earth healthy, but that requires the development and spread of new technology, new systems and, most essentially, a shift in perspective.

One of the blocks to that necessary shift in perspective is selfishness. Nobody believes that they will actually be the ones to suffer, so why should they be the ones to sacrifice? No one believes Hurricane Katrina will happen to them. No one believes the food will stop getting trucked into grocery stores or that one day they will not be able to afford transportation. They believe that there is indeed some magic bullet that will clean the oceans, restore the fish, recreate the forests, re-enrich the soils, keep all industry humming and not put one ounce of carbon into the atmosphere. And that, for this, they will have to make no sacrifice. Others just ignore the problems. They have their own problems to deal with.

Breaking through the Teflon wall that is human apathy may be the hardest challenge of all for those of us who are trying to spread awareness and promote change toward a sustainable society. Many people believe it is simply impossible and those that do care need to target something other than people’s hearts if they want to win them over. These people argue that we should instead target people’s pocketbooks—carbon taxes, gas taxes, “sin” taxes are the answer. I always have a hard time arguing against this, because there is truth that if something is just too expensive, people will stop buying it. But, somehow, it seems like another band-aid that won’t fix the deeper problem.

I think the environmental movement is to this decade what the Civil Rights Movement was to the 50’s. In the 50’s, Civil Rights was just beginning. The activists were few, but they were growing. There was much opposition and at times, it seemed the struggle was only worsening the problem. But by the 1960’s, with the incredible leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., the movement took over America. It gained the favor of the majority and sealed a lasting change in America’s attitudes toward race. Racism is not dead, but at least we stand on a foundation that mandates its dissolution rather than its perpetuation. What if people had proposed an economic solution to segregation? Just pay people to move to black neighborhoods. Or pay blacks to move to white neighborhoods. Just put a higher property tax on school districts that insist on segregated schools.

For lasting social change, there must always be, first, an evolution of consciousness. Anything less is only a band-aid on the wound that will allow it to fester for a later day. The solution is not economic and never will be. Life is not about economics and the issue of saving our earth is about life. So saving our earth is not about economics. Everyone out there who knows this in their heart has as their number one purpose the sharing of this awareness. Systems of belief and behavior change face to face first. Eventually, the changes are written into law.

The Protestant Revolution, the American Revolution and Civil Rights did not start with the government passing legislature. They started in people’s hearts and minds. As more and more people shared their powerful feelings and sense of purpose, a movement grew and with the movement came strength and with strength came the power to relinquish the past and effect systemic change. We can’t look above us, we have to look at each other eye-to-eye. Yes, we are smart enough, yes, we deserve to decide what is best for us and, yes, we adapt or die.

Writing a play about mountaintop removal is one drop in the bucket, but each drop counts. The people we have touched and will continue to touch through working on this play are part of the growing web of awareness that will rise like a tide to sweep the human race forward. It’s exciting to be part of such an important moment in history. I hope to continue to be a part of the enthusiasm of this movement, to show the public that by promoting systemic change toward a sustainable society, we are looking forward to the light, not leaving it behind. It’s in front of us, waiting for us.

In Candles to the Sun, a play by Tennessee Williams about coalminers in Appalachia in the 30’s, one of the characters, when discussing the choice of preserving one’s own future versus preserving the future of everyone, says, “It’s a lot like lookin’ at a candle…and then lookin’ at the sun.” There’s no reason to be afraid to extinguishing the candle…the sun is waiting.