Musings: Step Forward

Sometimes it takes a bit of humor to put things in perspective.

That occurred to me last night while watching Jon Stewart puzzle out the intense conflict over on the Keystone XL Pipeline on “The Daily Show.”

Why has that particular project created such divisiveness? As Stewart points out, as only he can, it's not the first pipeline to cross the U.S.—Canadian border. Nor is it the first to penetrate into the depths of the nation — others already carry crude to Colorado, Montana and other states — or the first to transport tar sands oil.

And it's not like delaying the pipeline is stalling the excavation of tar sands, or preventing the shipment of dirty crude to and through America. It's being moved right now, on barges, trucks and trains — sometimes with environmentally tragic results.

But it's become a battleground because environmental activists have turned it into a symbol — and politicians have been quick to pile on with the kind of rhetoric that only they can espouse. Republicans: “Economic security from the threat of terrorism.” Democrats: “Billowing black clouds have contaminated our children.”

As Stewart notes:

The truth is, this country already has Mario Bros. levels of pipeiness. Adding the Keystone XL to the mix would be like farting inside of a manure factory. But it's a lesson for activists. If even in a relatively zero sum fight, you can tap into our country's vast outrage reserves, you can take a fight that should've lasted one day and miraculously make it last eighteen hundred.

We're seeing a similar sort of divisiveness — and rhetoric — as activists tap into those same “vast outrage reserves” to fuel a fight over agriculture. But only the “industrial” kind, by which is apparently meant any farm that is larger than a few acres, employs technology and/or incorporates genetically modified crops, pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizer.

This fight is playing out locally, causing some Kauai folks to reject out of hand a dairy that wants to reduce milk imports by using a rotational pasture system that also reduces the need for imported feed.

It's caused people to go absolutely nuts over the seed fields, classifying every acre under production as a toxic waste site where heinous experiments are taking place.

It's caused a serious rift between commercial farmers, who know the economic and practical challenges of growing food in Hawaii, and some citizens, who adhere to an idealistic, simplistic food ideology that often doesn't translate well into reality.

And it's prompted opportunistic politicians to use rhetorical excess to fan the flames of divisiveness and further confuse voters while feeding their own giant egos.

Meanwhile, as folks put incredible amounts of energy into fighting this largely symbolic battle in Hawaii, agricultural land is steadily being developed, food imports keep increasing, irrigation systems are falling into disrepair, good land lies fallow and farmer morale is plunging.

Turning “industrial” ag into a symbol of all that is wrong with the food supply hasn't actually stopped, or even slowed, its production anywhere in the world. People are still consuming it in vast quantities, just like we're consuming vast amounts of oil. Yeah, some folks have switched to GMO-free or organic, just like some have converted to solar energy.

But overall, nothing has really changed because of these fights. The bigger, deeper, underlying questions and issues remain unanswered, unaddressed, while folks scrap over symbols.

We need to talk about our energy addiction, just like we need to talk about our food supply. But when we try to have that discussion behind lines that are not just drawn, but heavily fortified, we're not gonna talk, we're just gonna fight.

So maybe, thanks to people like Jon Stewart, we can start to see how ludicrous, how utterly nonsensical, these symbolic pitched battles really are. And once we start laughing at ourselves, perhaps we can let down our defenses and take a step forward, to that place in the middle where the best solutions reside.