Green American Style

Today was Earthfest, the now annual spring gathering of all things environmental on the Range. Or, in truer words, what people want to think of as green. The Range would not be unique in this, as Homo sapiens americanus neo-suburbanus equates green with a hybrid SUV and a composting coffee cup with organic labeled snacks for the kiddos.

But the absurdity of having a mining company sponsor such an event, much less a company that also mines coal, shows the delusional co-option that is much of American culture. Most Americans are now largely trained as corporate robots, their thoughts controlled as much by commercial infotainment as doctrinaire education.

Where else, but on the Range, could one see a Lincoln Navigator with a mining company parking tag on the mirror? They no longer need company men, for the dogs roll over happily for a paycheck, an SUV and the possibility of a lake home.

The parking lot, half filled with half ton pickups, minivans and SUV's, had the carbon footprint of Sao Paolo, Brasil, sans sugar cane based ethanol and most likely happily fueled by Venezuelan heavy crude. Only here could something like "Earthfest" seem more a celebration of maximal extraction and resource use than an event encouraging us to conserve and preserve. Eat some local food and toss a wax lined coffee cup inside a plastic bag inside a pvc trash can grab some more glossy colored paper telling you how to save energy and step into your truck...you have done your duty.

It is why I long ago gave up any hope of America's culture ever changing, for, as one friend said " Americans have no culture". I realize that they do, but one devoid of history, attachments to place, or a realization that one day someone will have to clean up their mess, giant holes and all. It is a culture tied to boom, bust, gold rushes, real estate booms, oil booms, stolen land, railroad subsidies and the gratitude of nuclear missile silo construction as it "brings jobs". It is a culture of commercials, 'developers" and the hip new suburb with boulevards named after now destroyed landscape features and long dead native tribes starved into extinction. The Range is not unique in this, though it might be the only place on earth where some locals demanded an expedited process for opening a sulfide mine and fought against the opening of a new school. Yes, the area is aging, but unfortunately, age begetting wisdom is a fallacy. What we have here is the old and stupid, demanding the return of 1973 and the muscle car.

The charade is perhaps best seen, where the State Deer Hunters Association, supporting an animal whose population is so out of proportion that growing anything edible requires elaborate fencing and chemical defenses, had a booth where people could engage in virtual shooting. Its connection to sustainability so tenuous it is as if one linked the Japanese dolphin slaughter to humane animal care, the booth is a perfect example of the Range, and America, at its best. We pretend to be green, while we pretend to hunt, in a pretend country. Unfortunately, this time the dream will be real, and awakening will not bring sunshine. We cannot leave the earth. And we cannot live in a virtual world.