{"id":43181,"date":"2019-01-26T09:15:44","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T14:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43181"},"modified":"2019-01-26T09:15:45","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T14:15:45","slug":"opinion-what-my-mothers-death-taught-me-about-saving-the-planet-we-cant-and-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43181","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: WHAT MY MOTHER\u2019S DEATH TAUGHT ME ABOUT SAVING THE PLANET. WE CAN\u2019T, AND HERE\u2019S WHY."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OPINION: WHAT MY MOTHER\u2019S DEATH TAUGHT ME ABOUT SAVING THE PLANET. WE CAN\u2019T, AND HERE\u2019S WHY.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As environmentalists, we often refer to our work as \u201csaving the planet.\u201d This is unhelpful for a couple of reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Intro<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Illustration by Sean Quinn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 24, 2019 \u2014 <\/em>As I look back on 2018, the thing I\u2019ll remember most is being with my mother for her final days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 86, she was doing great until she had a stroke around Halloween. That began a cascade of events that put her in and out of the intensive care unit. She staged a remarkable rebound that allowed her to leave the ICU and have one last wonderful 24 hours talking with me, my siblings and my father. She died just before Thanksgiving.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a bittersweet experience that, paradoxically, shed light on something that\u2019s been nagging me about my profession<\/a> for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As environmentalists, we often refer to our work as \u201csaving the planet.\u201d This is unhelpful for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Is Not Binary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, framing the challenge of living on a changing planet as a rescue mission is confrontational, which puts environmentalists in the role of \u201chero,\u201d fighting those out to \u201charm\u201d the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there are a lot of bad actors out there who willingly destroy our natural systems in the pursuit of profit. But we all impact the environment in some way. In my role as an executive at Environmental Defense Fund, where I mostly work on agricultural and coastal resilience issues, I encounter good, honorable men and women who are responding to a set of powerful economic incentives and social norms that influence their actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OPINION: WHAT MY MOTHER\u2019S DEATH TAUGHT ME ABOUT SAVING THE PLANET. WE CAN\u2019T, AND HERE\u2019S WHY. As environmentalists, we often refer to our work as \u201csaving the planet.\u201d This is unhelpful for a couple of reasons.  Illustration by Sean Quinn January 24, 2019 \u2014 As I look back on 2018, the thing I\u2019ll remember most is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[6513,4012],"class_list":["post-43181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-ensia","tag-environmentalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43182,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43181\/revisions\/43182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}