Avoiding Social Gaffes and Environmental Disasters

Has the political climate got you down? Anxious about hurricane season? Worried about the carbon footprint of avocado toast?  Well, sometimes we feel that way too. Allow us to soothe some of your concern with the following primer on how to be a decent human in the pre-Apocalypse.

What is Kombucha* Anyway?: Social Exchanges

-          Try to see everything from more than one perspective. This is called empathy. It will serve you well.

-          Introducing yourself or being introduced to someone is always a good point at which to ask someone what they wish to be called or what pronoun they prefer.

-          When people ask how you are, it is usually polite to reply and ask them how they are as well. This includes non-verbal communication such as e-mails. It is also a good idea to listen to what they say when you ask.

-          If you have a burning question that you are afraid to ask because it may be offensive, perhaps it is better asked to Google first. Google, DuckDuckGo, not 4chan.

-          If you are having trouble paying attention to what someone is saying to you, repeat what they are saying to yourself inside your own head.

-          The only way you can consider someone an exception to a race, gender, etc, would be if you had ACTUALLY MET every single person in that category. In other words, it is NEVER ok to call someone ‘an exception for your [insert category here]’. Be proactive and meet more people who are different from you.

-          Potentially problematic burning questions aside, it is a good idea to ask people questions about themselves. It is generally not problematic to ask questions like “What kind of music to you like?” or “What kind of hobbies do you have?”. “What are you?” or others like it are not acceptable questions. Do not phrase questions to confirm your assumptions.

-          Fruit is exotic. People are not.

-          As much as is possible, do the things you say you will do. People, friends, and Cambridge Analytica will appreciate it.

*Kombucha is essentially living tea made from scobee cultures and herbs/spices du jour. The point being: it’s good for your gut and hopefully these tips will be too.

You Can’t Hug Your Child with Nuclear Arms: Environmental Care

-          Try to avoid plastic if you can. It suffocates animals, poisons humans and doesn’t die.

-          The portable shetafa/bidet will change your life.

-          You’ve probably heard you should use coal, gas and oil sparingly. You know what else should be on that list? Water. For examples see Cape Town.

-          Reusables are your friend. The takeaway shop won’t look at you too weirdly if you show up with your own containers for food. Anyway, they’ll eventually stop looking at you weirdly.

-          Building or making your own things can be fun. Chances are it will save you money.

-          Invest in things that last and/or can be repaired. Outdoor clothing companies are grand at mending things you buy from them. We can encourage more to follow suit if we reward those companies with our money.

-          Electricity is a luxury that we share with our neighbors on a grid. Always know where your fuse box is, and maybe look up how the wiring of basic household objects works.

-          Toolboxes are handy. No not just the ones for building websites.

-          It really is a good idea to learn to grow your own food. Plants have natural complements that can make less work for you, act as a repellent to pests and replenish the soil.

-          Make use of public transportation. The more you use it, the more you have a right to complain and force local governments to make them better.

-          Vinegar, sometimes with baking soda, can disinfect, clean and unclog most things. Also good for deodorant and mosquito bites. There are alternatives to many if all of the toxic products that you may have for cleaning. They are healthier for you, your pets, your tiny humans and the environment. Have a Google, enjoy yourself.

-          While we are on the topic of things toxic, here’s another freebie: lemongrass, citronella, eucalyptus and lime oil make good general repellents. Much safer for you than DEET.

Resourceful

I appreciated many things about Egyptian mythology. What I loved most was that the Earth wasn’t a woman. No need to cringe over the treatment of the great mother, raping her of resources, or the fracking of her crust. Geb, Father Earth, completed the cosmos where he met the sky.

To be clear, I appreciate the beauty of a benevolent Earth mother, a resplendent Gaia in pagan Spring. Humanity tends to feminize all things with a womb and use it without regard for consequences. The problem here is not metaphor, it’s that what we own, use and inhabit is somehow automatically feminine. What we use or own is often, also, abused.

Once land and people started to hold monetary value they often became resources. Wealth, class and race divided people into workforce and landowners. In The Ascent of Woman Dr. Amanda Foreman notes the Code of Hammurabi was the first time that humanity defined women's limitations. Empires and households traded women for being able to produce more human capital. The only advantage to being a wealthy womb was a life of leisure as you despaired over the production of a male heir. The poor wombs not only had to produce enough humans to work the land, but also labor of their own to worry over. In either case, society tied women’s value to domesticity, birth or sex.

There’s a twisted symmetry to it. Outside of their ability to produce, resources have little value. Consequences to the resources themselves are only considered when they affect others. Consider how de/regulation follows a high death toll or the halt of a production line. It matters little if resources are sickly, as long as they can still make more. Endanger that and owners will make changes. Human greed or neglect is rarely to blame for dwindling resources. In fact, scarcity often leads to a greater control over any given resource. If there is only so much crude oil left, might as well make the most profit from what remains. It’s so much more valuable when it’s rare, after all.

A resource doesn’t have the ability to offer consent. Women themselves choosing when not to give birth is a political hotbed in every country. Women become lobbyists, activists or politicians and raise their voices. Yet congresses and parliaments ignore them as if they had no voice. Women and the Earth are useful in their bounty and wasteful unless they produce value.

It’s disturbing how humanity resorts to exploitation, and not only of the women of the Earth. All is insubstantial to the power of profit and woe to those who are essentially, valuable. Money can raise lobbies, think tanks, campaigns, and court rulings to protect profit. It is lawful for the Earth, women, LGBTIQ persons, people of color, the poor, and others to be resources. Global climate, economic and human rights agreements are attempts to curb centuries of abuse. A global wealthy white minority continues to reinforce and support these practices.

Harassment is on the international stage these days. It’s the everyday act of exerting power over someone who is vulnerable. They are not always women, but it is the women that humanity somehow finds the most difficult to believe. There are many countries where a woman's word is suspect, but the idea alone is devastating. How often is one accusation of harassment or rape enough? How many wealthy celebrities did it take to take down a Weinstein? Wealth, once again, does not protect those who have wombs. It was Alianza Nacional de Campesinas who sounded the weariest support. Farmworkers are no stranger to exploitation and harassment:

“We do not work under bright stage lights or on the big screen. We work in the shadows of society in isolated fields and packinghouses that are out of sight and out of mind for most people in this country. Your job feeds souls, fills hearts and spreads joy. Our job nourishes the nation with the fruits, vegetables and other crops that we plant, pick and pack.

The kind of thinking that leads to exploitation has consequences. Where and to whom we assign profit and value is racist and gendered. Worst of all, those who suffer from scarcity and abuse often disappear. Disaster favors the prepared and very few of us have the wealth or the insurance to recover from it. We dismiss those we lose to starvation and death in Appalachia, Sudan or Yemen. It’s always the strong that survive, isn’t it?

Reckless development as misogyny is more pernicious. The Earth is lying there, daring to be plentiful and lush. Drill baby, drill. Rape analogies for the Earth should make corporate development horrifying, but they don't. Horrifying because rape is horrifying. Horrifying because it drives people from their homes. Horrifying because it floods land and sea in toxic crude oil. Horrifying because it affects us all, gendered or not.

The earth is a celestial body. It possesses no gender, has no need to perform a societal role. It simply is. Humans still can’t seem to move beyond societal roles even if they shift over time. It has not benefitted more than half of humanity to be only as valuable as what they produce between their legs. It has not benefitted the earth to be only as valuable as its ability to sustain humanity. Identity and how we treat one another should no longer depend on biology or gender. There are ancient, systemic problems with how we value gender and production. We cannot solve equality or poverty overnight. So, I have a simple request to start the process: reconsider how you decide what or who is valuable. We can’t ask the earth how it would prefer we see it, but we can certainly ask one another.