Where I Stand

I consider myself an environmentalist.  Then again, today, it’s pretty easy to call yourself an environmentalist, but it can be pretty difficult to find a comfortable balance between enjoying modern amenities and luxuries, and being conscious of the rates and methods of our consumption and their impact on the environment.  Environmental issues are vast and deep, and becoming an expert can be daunting—I don’t pretend to be an expert.  Rather, for the time being, I’ve focused on a particular environmental concern of mine – maintaining food security while sustaining biodiversity. 

            I spent a large portion of my summer in India with my twin sister researching seed saving practices and efforts to preserve biodiversity through sustainable farming initiatives.  We spent the majority of our time with two organizations, Navdanya, in a village called Ramgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.   Both of these organizations strive to empower farmers, especially women farmers (who make up the majority of farmers in India and much of the ‘developing world’), and preserve biodiversity by effectively managing the world’s resources.  While these two organizations differ in many significant ways, they both focus on the importance of conserving our world’s resources in a way that effectively supports the abundant life on this planet, and will continue to do so.  It was this foundational ideology that attracted my sister and me to these organizations, so I suppose that makes me a conservationist.  In some ways I should call myself a holist as well, but I stick to the conservationist label, as ultimately I am concerned with the preservation of the human race, though I do believe that this is deeply connected to responsible sustainment of all life forms on this planet.  However, the line between conservationist and holist is, for me, a fuzzy one—not in my understanding of the terms, but in my devotion to either philosophy.  In my ideology I strive towards holism--I want to treat the earth and the life it sustains as of equal value as human beings, and to always be mindful of my dependence on the world around me, as well as its dependence on me.  In practice, I am honestly more of a conservationist.  The struggle to unite ourselves in belief and practice is an age old one, and it is the same one that makes it so easy to call yourself an environmentalist while failing to live up to those beliefs actively in our daily lives.  

            If I won’t call myself an environmental expert, I certainly won’t call myself a political one.  Let’s be honest—sometimes I pretend to know more, or anything, about politics to sound smart.  Politics was always something I considered fascinating and important in my life, but alas, still I find little motivation to keep myself as informed as I wish I would be.  Growing up, my parents claimed to be Republican, but I don't think they were much of anything.  They own a business, so economically I suppose they leaned to the right.  Socially, I don't think they leaned anywhere.  Frankly, I think they were too busy raising seven children to really give their political loyalties much consideration.  As their children grew up, however, that started to change.  My big brothers probably influenced my political opinions the most.  My oldest brother, Joe, who is 35, was probably my biggest influence.  He is a die hard liberal, as is his amazing wife, Kelly.  Together, I think they have done a pretty good job of liberalizing our entire family, including my parents.  So it's likely I 'inherited' my political stance from them.  In my defense, however, I feel I had ample opportunity to 'swing Right,' because I also spent my first 8 years of schooling in parochial schools, 7 of which were spent in Catholic school.  I was in sixth grade during the Bush vs. Gore elections, and our school held a mock election where all us wee ones got to cast a ballot.  My teacher told us that God would be really upset with us if we voted for Al Gore, and that we would need to ask his forgiveness.  Still, I voted for Gore.  Granted, I hated my sixth grade teacher--I even put my first and last name on the ballot so she would know exactly where I stood, and that it was nowhere near her.  I probably would have voted for Oprah if she had told me not to. But she wasn't the only conservative influence in my life... just the one that stands out the most.  In any case, I realize I have my biases.
            Regardless, I feel confident in calling myself a Democrat. I support government regulation in many aspects of the political and social spheres.  I hate paying taxes, don’t get me wrong—but I believe in them.  Just as I believe that human life is dependent on all life on this planet, I believe that within human society, every segment of the population is a vital and necessary part of the whole.  There are those groups and individuals who are, for many various reasons, unable to care for themselves completely independently.  It is a community’s responsibility to care for every individual that makes up the whole, even when not every individual can be an equal contributor.  In other words, I don’t yell at homeless people to ‘get a fucking job’ when they ask me for a cigarette outside the bar.  I either give them a cigarette, or I don’t.  But I don’t resent the fact that my family’s tax dollars may (or may not, let's be honest) support services that provide them beds to sleep in, food to live off of, and medical care to keep them healthy.  We all depend on one another for something, even if it isn’t immediately apparent. 

            Here’s where it gets somewhat tricky for me.  Yes, I believe in government regulation of business and natural resources.  At the same time, I disagree with the way in which the government regulates and controls agriculture in this country, as well as deeply influences agricultural policy in other countries, such as India.  Government subsidies of genetically modified corn and soy do not regulate that business—they determine it.  The US government does not regulate the power that companies like Monsanto hold over the world’s food—it enables it.  In this way, I support small, local business that is free from regulations that dictate whether or not a farmer can save his seeds.   I would support government regulation of seed saving practices if it meant that the government supported seed saving practices, but it doesn’t.  And the fact of the matter is, seeds shouldn’t even need to be regulated.  Once seeds stopped being considered common property and began to be treated as a commodity is when the question of seed saving policy even became an issue.  I don’t believe any one person or company should have the right to patent life, and if no one can patent life/seeds and therefore profit from it, there remains no need to regulate it. 

            So, this appears to be my dilemma: I believe in government regulation so far as it ensures social welfare, but when regulation stops looking out for the little guy—the small farmer, the small business owner, the ‘local’ as well as the national—I can’t advocate for it.  Farmers need to be given the freedom to grow what they want to grow, how they want to grow it.  And government subsidies on crops as they stand currently do not afford farmers this opportunity.