Shouldn’t the environment be an issue we can all rally around?

Over the past month or so that I’ve been living in Jasper, I’ve had the pleasurable opportunity to attend a number of community functions.  It’s quite refreshing to reside in a community whose residents take such pride and active involvement in the betterment of their surroundings not only for today, but for tomorrow.  

But don’t despair, before you turn the page, this isn’t going to be a hands-holding, legs-crossing, campfire koombaya moment.  

I’ve observed cooperation, compromise, understanding, as well as the ability to be gracious in disagreement.  Like the Rolling Stones opined, “you can’t always get what you want.”  

Environmental issues seem to spark some of the most contentious, intractable and downright nasty debates.  Maybe this is natural since Al Gore and every other pseudo-environmentalist keeps telling me, histrionics in tow, that the ‘environment’ is the transcendent issue of our times.  

And let’s just say nature, because words like ‘environment’, ‘climate change’ and ‘sustainability’ have been so overused by Birkenstock-sporting, self-appointed environmental deities that these terms are essentially meaningless.  These are the people who survive on twigs and berries and anything that has the divine words organic, free-trade, free-range and locally-grown, emblazoned on a recycled bison-dropping-infused all-natural label.  

There’s nothing wrong with being conscious about how we treat and interact with nature, or with how people want to define themselves, that’s their choice.  The problem I have is when someone tells me, or rather preaches to me, that I shouldn’t do this or that, use this or that, eat this or that.  I’m sorry, I’m not a complete dunce.  I dig the pig and really bloody beef and I’ve even tried – dare I say it – milk-fed veal.  Yogurt and granola just doesn’t satiate my devilish appetite.  

I also enjoy tofu and vegetables though.   Does that make me a hypocrite?  Hardly.  It makes me human.  We’re all full of contradiction.  If everybody was one thing or another – environmentalist or polluter, religious or atheist – life would be predictably acrimonious and ultimately boring.  

Jasper is obviously in a national park, which creates unique difficulties in balancing the needs of a modern community with the overwhelming desire to protect and safeguard our surroundings.  However, these two goals are not mutually exclusive and that is why events that are part of the Jasper Community Sustainability Plan, such as the Pecha Kucha, are so encouraging and instructive. 

There are some in the community that will not be happy however, until mountain bikers, the Antichrist, and all other environmental Judases are returned to carbon in rapturous glory.  At least this would be all-natural and environmentally sustainable.  

I find the perennial sanctimony of some ‘environmentalists’  to be highly unnatural, especially in Jasper.  The reason people move to Jasper, or continue to live in Jasper, is because of the natural surroundings.  It’s safe to say that every single person in Jasper is not a heretic and wishes to be a good steward of the park, simply because we know we’re lucky to live here.    

It is not the case, however, that every single resident thinks this can be done collaboratively.  There are those spreading what they think is ‘the way.’  Literally, drink the Kool-Aid – or rather Jesus Juice, to use Michael Jackson’s terminology, since Kool-Aid contains gelatin and tree huggers who proselytize the green gospel wouldn’t dare eat hoof – or the sky will come crashing.  

It’s not the anti-environmentalists and the polluters and the generally apathetic that have made ‘environmentalism’ a dirty word.  It is in fact the apocalypse-singing know-it-alls, who are always right and everybody else is wrong when it comes to dealing with our natural environment.  Here’s a tip for those who see the craisin as a food group: if you’re always outraged, if you feel the urge to tell me the sky is always about to fall, people will begin to tune you out for good, undercutting what I believe are probably the sincere reasons you became an activist in the first place.  For God sakes, come up with some practical and rational solutions, not just irrational criticisms.        

As I tell my friends around election time, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain and if you do complain, I don’t care!”  When given the opportunity to participate in a forum dealing with something seen as the defining issue of our times and you choose not to, you’re not banished to hell, but you should definitely be in activist purgatory where you can claim neither victory or failure.  

Now if you think that what I’ve said is unreasonable, or unfair, I admit it might be a bit sarcastic, but please refrain from using me as a target for Birkenstock chucking because those buckles could put out an eye (they hurt a lot more than the sneakers hurled at Bush) and I’ll be wearing steel-toed boots for the next couple weeks. You can’t say you haven’t been warned.