Cornell on Fire Weekly 6/20: We’ve always done it this way
“The Square” by Ninn Salaün, gratefully reposted with permission.
Dear Cornell on Fire,
We are alive at a time when the way things have “always” been is no longer a good guide to the future. But this simple point is hypnotically hard to communicate.
On this Summer Solstice, consider four true stories:
#1. Cornell on Fire presented to Cornell representatives in January, asking Cornell to make courageous changes to carbon-intensive practices to address the climate emergency and help preserve a habitable planet. One Cornell official responded: “But what if our competitor builds a new business school? We must keep up.”
#2. One of us spoke to municipal officials to ask whether the Ithaca Green New Deal’s goal for carbon neutrality by 2030 include policies around degrowth. How will Ithaca meet its climate goals if new construction continues at an uninterrupted pace? An official responded: “People have a right to build.” Yes, but the right to build is endangering the right to a habitable planet. New construction locks us into ongoing carbon emissions, toxicity, and harmful land use patterns that are causing climate breakdown. The official cut in: “I understand climate change. But we have a right to build.”
#3. Cornell on Fire has spoken to many faculty about climate-adapted mobility, noting that aviation is a primary way that academics directly contribute to climate change. Faculty agree with us, but argue that their colleagues will offer some form of the response: “Yes, but this is how I or my students have always done book launches/conferences/networking/fill in the blank.”
#4. Sometimes, people tell us that they are just too busy for climate action. Some point to the fact that corporations have caused climate change, so individuals have no role to play. We are all busy with the routines and challenges involved in living our lives. But we also want someone to do something. Who will partake in the mass collective action and political movement required to hold culpable corporations accountable? Somehow, we have to make time.
These stories all pivot on a paradox: business-as-usual (or life-as-usual) is not a justification for ignoring the climate crisis: it is the cause of the climate crisis.
Science shows that “business-as-usual” is no longer fit for purpose, but we struggle to acknowledge that reality when it lands on our own doorstep. What if we collectively acknowledged that the climate crisis exists precisely because we continue to do things the way we’ve always done them? There is no magic swap of renewable energy for fossil fuel energy that will deliver our carbon-intensive lifestyles intact while achieving “net-zero emissions” (and emissions are only part of the picture). There is no magic solution where “corporations” change but our own lives as consumers remain unchanged. The climate is changing, and so must we.
Among many Northern Hemisphere communities, the Summer Solstice has traditionally been a time to let go of what is complete or no longer needed. On Summer Solstice 2024, we can let go of the misguided cultural framework that holds up the determinism of the “Tragedy of the Commons.” This myth is the lynchpin of business-as-usual. But the assumptions that create the “tragedy” are cultural. And cultures can change.
We can liberate ourselves from a frame of analysis fixated on our own rights and entitlements, and instead embrace our interconnection with and unconditional accountability to all other beings. We can relieve ourselves of constant competition and instead cooperate. (What if Cornell’s response to a peer’s new business school was: “I’m happy for you”? And then, with an arm around their shoulder, “But I’m worried about our climate goals?”) We can acknowledge that our “right to build” is contingent on the capacity of earth and other beings to sustain that building without undue harm – and that the purpose of the building must be worthy of the sacrifices required. Fixation on personal advancement is a key variable in the capitalism-created Tragedy of the Commons. We could drop it (it’s unrewarding anyway) and ask ourselves, “How much harm will I ask others to bear in the name of my own career advancement?” From this framework, we easily see that personal success is only rewarding in the context of the common good and collective survival.
Perhaps the most relaxing thing we could do on the Summer Solstice is let go of the notion that we are “too busy” to tend to our relationship with earth. This cultural narrative is as troubling as it is telling. Fair warning: if we are “too busy” to care about earth today, we are certainly “too busy” to deal with climate breakdown tomorrow. Let’s reject the hypnotic lifestyle myth that tells us our harried lifestyles and carbon-intensive entitlements are more important than living with moral awareness of, and accountability to, the web of life that sustains us. To quote Nobel Laureate in Economics Elinor Ostrom: “‘We are neither trapped in inexorable tragedies nor free of moral responsibility.”
The painting that illuminates this blog post is called “The Square,” by the artist Ninn Salaün (reposted with permission and gratitude). We are the ones walking through the meadow directly toward a black box. We seem unable to conceive of a world where our carbon-intensive entitlements will end. (And they will end. As multiple observers point out: "It is hopefully not too controversial to note that unsustainable things end.”)
Greta Thunberg has noted that many people are more afraid of the changes needed to prevent climate change, than they are of climate change itself. Get involved and share your thoughts on change:
Tell Cornell to declare a climate emergency: Sign our demands.
Sign and share the Zero Waste Ithaca petition against Cornell’s plan to install artificial turf at the proposed Meinig Athletic Field House and beyond.
Join our CoF Zoom meeting next Wednesday, June 26, 6:30-8:00pm.
Join a research project to help Cornell realize its climate goals (can be done from anywhere).
Let’s break the hypnosis of business-as-usual and our own lives-as-usual. They are causing a climate crisis. Fortunately, they can change for the vastly more beautiful. To the miracle of the commons!
In unusual times,
Cornell on Fire
P.S. John Muir may not have gotten everything right, but this observation holds truth: "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.”
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Plurivocality: CoF Weeklies are written by a revolving team of writers. Our movement is diverse, so are our thoughts, and so will be our Weeklies. If you receive a CoF Weekly that you think is wrong headed, can we still walk together? (We, like you, sometimes write things we later laugh at!)
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