Ape Rifle

After several years as a Western media darling full of flashy skylines and get-rich-quick stories, it would seem that China has been having a bit of a bumpier ride as of late. First came the stories of tainted exports products, then came the uproar over slavery in rural brick kilns; now, a Dutch environmental group has estimated that China may have already overtaken the US as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. This announcement comes at a particularly bad time for the Chinese government, what with the Olympics on their way and the public in many industrialized countries deep in the throes of global warning worry (well, at least in between driving their SUV to the corner store). China as the world’s top polluter is obvious ammunition for the anti-China lobby, but Beijing is not taking this loss of face lying down. The Foreign Ministry spokesman was recently quoted firing back this repartee:

“The developed countries move a lot of manufacturing industry into China. A lot of the things you wear, you use, you eat are produced in China,” he said at a regular news briefing. “On the one hand, you shall increase the production in China, on the other hand you criticize China on the emission-reduction issue.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. As a media junkie, I’ve always been a bit bewildered about all the accusations flying the Middle Kingdom’s way regarding Chinese-Western (well, largely American) relations. China, revalue your currency. China, clean up your act. China, jump through this hoop and do a somersault. Meanwhile, those of us in the more Western reaches of the globe might want to check out what our own multinationals have been up to over the past decade or so- there’s a good chance that if I ply the aisles of some suburban big-box warehouse, the junk filling my shopping cart is from everyone’s favourite East Asian nation. As much as we might loath to admit it, as eager consumers we are all responsible for the Chinese environmental meltdown and its growing effects on the world at large.

So it’s almost comical to hear members of the American political class, for example, taking China to task; I have some bad news for you guys. You know that military/economic/environmental threat you keep going on about? Well, it’s a lumbering Frankenstein largely of your own creation. While economists go on about about the genius of Chinese planning (a sequence of words that might seem rather strange to those who have actually spent some time in the country), an equal salutation should be given to the West’s voracious and guilt-free appetite for cheap consumer goods, without which the Chinese ‘miracle’ would never have been possible. Of course, as the few regular readers of this site should know, this does not mean I’m excusing China’s bulldozer-happy, growth-at-all-costs-including-your-life approach to societal change. The sustainability of this frenzy has yet to be truly tested, and the wholesale destruction of environmental quality might well be the first- and ultimate- manifestation of its limitations. Yet, I do not think it is constructive to pile the emissions blame largely on China, as the West has been just a bit complicit in its mad industrialization in the first place.

So where do we go from here? Well the Chinese government has released a climate change plan that promises to address the issue, but of course not at the expense of those cherished growth figures. And seeing how the Chinese approach economic development with an “All Smokestacks Go!” mentality, I suspect we won’t be seeing meaningful reductions in emissions anytime soon. As for the strategic waffling and delay of many Western governments on the issue, enough has been said already that I don’t need to remind anyone how pathetic the whole situation is.

While it is tempting to imagine that all of this is caused by cartoon-like villains at work, hellbent on planetary destruction, I propose there is something less sinister going on. A recent headline, equally as newsworthy as global warming but likely to garner much less attention, notes that for the first time in history humanity will be more urban than rural. Simply put, ever more people are joining the ranks of those already thoroughly alienated from their environment, through desperation as much as choice, and this is reflected in the actions (or inactions) of leaders of lands industrialized, rapidly industrializing or somehow hoping to industrialize. While the urban condition has provided much that is good to humanity, I would argue that its principal drawback is in the way it distances us from the relevance of the land on which we depend. We are so removed from the processes which sustain us that many of us urbanites no longer even consider them within the scope of our daily lives. Urban survival depends on the accumulation of a virtual wealth which designates who can do what with how much- with precious little regard for the ultimate physical effects this may have on our surroundings. The urban condition allows us to convince ourselves that we are above and beyond ‘nature’ and its whims- or that we can at least forcefully control it through engineering.

And so it is no surprise that environmental issues have to such a large extent been considered a societal niche, a compartmentalized matter alongside and equal to politics, business, sports and entertainment in the classification of our busy lives. Environmentalism can thus be portrayed as a luxury, a left-wing annoyance, something to get around to eventually so that things look nicer and smell better- this is what happens when we imagine ourselves as above and beyond our own environments, in no way connected to the particular lands which we occupy. In this sense, the ‘environment’ is some separate entity which can be preserved or destroyed without much relation to the compartmentalized urban spaces in which we increasingly conceptualize ourselves. Cities may set us free in many ways, but they also provide a very false sense of security.

This alienation of humanity from its environment, embedded so forcefully in the Western doctrines of modernism and industrialism and happily pushed worldwide under the friendly guise of ‘development’, runs so deep in our societal consciousness that it can even be found within environmentalism itself. Hence the talk of preservation, of conservation, as if there is some desirable ‘natural’ state of the world apart from human activity. Our environment becomes something to be managed, but from the outside. This is the sort of mentality that leads to the creation of large national parks from which people are cleared out, as if their presence on this landscape is somehow ‘unnatural’.

And then we get to that whole issue of whether climate change is natural or man-made. Well I would say this whole debate is completely pointless: this is a false dichotomy. Something can only be man-made or natural if you understand these as two mutually exclusive spheres, which I would argue they are not. Human beings are part and parcel of this earth as much as any other creature, as are our actions. So anything we do, including spew pollution into the atmosphere, can and should be considered a natural process. I think it is high time that we relink our idea of ourselves, our cities and our industries with the wider world around us.

So if climate change and pollution can be considered natural, does this mean they are acceptable? Well, I guess it depends on how you approach the issue. From the perspective of the planet, these are neither good nor bad: they just are. I do not believe we can attribute any moral state to the machinations of our planet; continents move, species come and go, weather changes, life goes on in some form or other. The one constant seems to be dynamic change. And part of this change is certainly the work of the particularly busy and industrious species that is humanity. Is it evil or wrong that we so fundamentally affect the way our planet works through industrialism? No. But what if we turn it into a barren, smoggy rock? Hey, shit happens. The dinosaurs cashed out, someday it will be our turn. But the earth will still be the earth and life will go on somehow- maybe it will be the age of cockroaches.

Of course, from a human perspective, we could be in a bit more trouble. We might not be destroying the earth in a cosmic sense, but we are most likely changing the earth in a way that is increasingly hostile to us. From a species-selfish perspective, I worry we are at the very least setting ourselves up for some serious pain in the standard of living department. The more we alienate ourselves from our environment, the more we gleefully allow its ability to sustain us to diminish. Climate change might not be bad for the planet on the grand scale of things, but I have a sinking feeling it could mean a pretty bumpy ride for us humans. Has anyone ever tried eating money or metal? I can’t imagine it’s a very pleasant or nourishing experience.

So while many would accuse our contemporary politicians and unelected autocrats of pandering to short-term interests and their cronies’ pockets, I would argue the opposite: it would seem that our pollution-happy politicians are adhering to a long-term view, perhaps too long, as in “we are all dead in the end anyways, and nothing more than insignificant blips on the grand scale of things”. While it is perhaps admirable to demonstrate such cosmic consciousness, somehow I don’t think these are the best guidelines with which to run governments and states.

But is this lack of real action any surprise, after all? While superficially panicked about global warming, most people are just as unwilling to affect any sort of meaningful change in their lives as their politicians are hesitant to put any hard-hitting policies in place. We can consider ourselves environmentally conscious, or maybe “worried” about the environment, but this often does not reflect at all back onto the habits of our daily lives. We can sit in a fume-belching SUV stuck in traffic while lamenting the crazy weather and threat of climate change- and not even recognize the lunacy in our position. Thanks to our complete conceptual separation from our environment- fueled by modernism, industry and urbanism -we can decry the state of the environment (not our) while not considering for even a few seconds how our own behaviour plays any part in this whole spectacle.

For argument’s sake, there is always the possibility that climate change and growing pollution are not the dire threat to humanity they are often made out to be. As a species, we have proven to be incredibly adaptable, and we could very well evolve to survive on a radically different earth. But then climate change and pollution become an even starker socio-political choice: do we want to live on a polluted planet? Do we truly accept that an industrial world and all its consumer goods mean an increasingly spoiled environment as we understand it? Do we accept that the number of smog days will keep rising? The trade-off for pursuing our current ideas of wealth, happiness and modernity- largely to be found in plastic and redundant packaging - is a planet that is dirtier, more unstable and likely much less beautiful. Are we willing to make that sacrifice? I would argue that many of us already have without even thinking about it.

I came across this scene on the street the other day and loved the juxtaposition. We want freshness. We want the taste, the attention and the care that only home cooking can provide. We want that perfect meal immaculately posed on a beautiful plate. We want the fruits of a vibrant earth. And yet we accept that it is conveniently delivered to us by a dirty world of asphalt, steel, concrete and toxic fumes. Just another episode in our long and steady alienation from the land which sustains us.

Around here, as they say, there are only two seasons: winter and construction. So as Formula One cars rip up the race track here this weekend, the rest of the city is moving at a markedly slower pace. With the arrival of warm weather comes the seasonal onslaught of closed highway lanes, orange pylons, steel mesh fencing and large municipal vehicles sprinkled liberally across the roads- and sidewalks - of this fair town.

While the wear and tear of harsh winters is often fingered as the main culprit behind the sorry state of Montreal’s roads, it is obvious that neglect, poor planning and shoddy construction are equal partners in this endeavor. It is difficult to think of Montreal’s transportation infrastructure as anything other than cracked and creaking, the modernist highway fly-overs of visions past now little more than crumbling, even dangerous, concrete eyesores. I have often felt that this is one of the major reasons that Montreal, on average, presents a grittier and more haphazard physical landscape than many other Canadian cities. A long-standing affair with economic malaise during the late 20th century left the city with a legacy of mid-century concrete pipe dreams, only without the money or the political will to maintain their pretense. And so potholes have joined the likes of bagels and hockey as a central element to the common imagining of the city’s fabric.

This year, however, the city seems to be digging up the roads with added vigor. Major thoroughfares are undergoing serious renovation, with deep holes and twisted work signs decorating many an intersection. The orange pylons are numerous enough to make jaywalking a pleasant experience (you only have to dart across the single lane of traffic funneled down from three thanks to construction). Basic lane lines and directional arrows are appearing on streets where before there were none. Perhaps this is part of the larger sprucing up that Montreal has been experiencing over the past five years or so, with towers of glass and construction cranes slowly sneaking onto the scene alongside a regeneration of public spaces.

For now, however, much of it remains a dusty, jack-hammered work in progress. As it is every year, really. But the bustling clutter of these streets crowded with workers, machinery, pedestrians and vehicles- while perhaps inconvenient and cumbersome- nevertheless mirrors the explosion of life and activity that the arrival of summer brings to Montrealers.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comes to the Canadian countryside.