Inspiration/Desperation

I'm a latecomer to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. But I'm a BCer--I know all this shit, right?

My boyfriend/fiancee and I drive a 1982 biodiesel Landcruiser--when we drive. Mostly we both walk and take transit. Before Old Dirty Brownie, we both belonged to The Cooperative Auto Network.

But lately I've felt a greater sense of urgency around my usual attempts at buying organic and being diligent about recycling. Maybe it's because I'm now living in Toronto, where people smoke everywhere and throw their butts at your feet; where they shoulder-check you on a regular basis in the endless, subterranean mallplexes that connect the subway stations; or because I see so many people pitching glass containers into the garbage; or because I found myself, this weekend, recycling other people's "garbage" (a plastic, mega-detergent bottle and a foot-high stack of newspapers--not exactly a recycling challenge) in my building's "garbage" shed.

But maybe it started earlier, when a few months ago I found myself gazing in awe at a Ziploc bag and wondering how I could ever have thrown anything so substantial out after a single use (now I wash them and they hold up amazingly well).

But even more recently, I foundnd myself starting to feel desperate. The closest place for me to buy groceries on my way home (and I live in the densely urban core) is a chain supermarket in one of those underground malls. (Near my home, I try to frequent the developing-worldesque fruit market/bodgeas and the single, West Indian meat market, but in still-Christian Ontario nearly everything closes at 6 pm, near when I finish work).

Tonight, at the supermarket, I found myself quizzing the supermarket produce guy about what I could buy that was grown in Ontario; and finding myself unwilling to do anything other than come away with my local hydroponic pepper, apples and heirloom tomato on offer. I found myself in the liquor store buying Ontario plonk rather than the Australian Shiraz I love.

And then, tonight, I had a date with Al Gore. His film was on a digital movie channel while I ate dinner.

We have to do this: keep refusing bags, refusing to buy things made far away (can I make my own olive oil?), keep refusing our cars and offsetting whatever it costs the planet when we take a plane flight.

I almost feel ridiculous for writing this. But when I put my groceries in my tote bag with my shoes, book, and commuter coffee mug tonight and refused a bag, I thought, some day everyone will be doing this and the clerk won't look at me like I'm insane. (Of course, no Choices clerk in Vancouver would, now.)

It also made me think of my hippie grade five teacher, Marie Orth-Pallavacini (who yes, made us sing anti-war songs and didn't shave her armpits), who made us go to our local grocery stores way back in 1980 with our own shopping bags and refuse the new one on offer (I was so humiliated, but I did it)... And think, my god, we're still in the same place, 27 years later.

Well, watch Gore's movie, and do something radical. I know, he's apparently not so carbon-neutral, but who is? The film has its hokey moments, but from a cinematic perspective even these work, and he's still got it right.