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Comin’ around different mountains
July 7, 2008

One of the great aspects of traveling is meeting new people, people from entirely different walks of life and from far away countries.

A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with Anika, a Danish lady on a train somewhere in China. Turned out that these days she lived in the U.S. for the most part. Go figure. Anyhow starting with chit chat about gas prices in various countries - seeminly an international topic these days - we moved on to peak oil. Now I had not read enough books or research papers to be completely convinced whether we were close to, right at, or post peak oil. But the theory of peak oil seemed entirely plausible. My new acquaintance on the other hand was very admant that we still had enough oil reserve to last us centuries and centuries. She believed however that because of the unique location of the oil reserves, we (rest of the world, particularly the west) were clearly hijacked politically by the region.

We beat around the bush about peak oil or no peak oil for a while and it was getting frustrating for both of us. It seemed that we could not come to any common understanding.

But then I found out that back home Anika did not own a car. She biked everywhere, work, stores, and kids’ schools. Apparently she grew up in Holland and biking around town was just the way of life. Further discussion revealed that she was equally admant that we needed to be energy independent to achieve political stability. “Conservation and alternative energy” she insisted would be the only ways to get us out of the current hijacked circumstances.

We seemed to come from divergent paths but somehow landed at the same place - conservation and alternative energy. I almost felt like saying, “hell, why didn’t you just say so?!” Surely she felt the same way.

“Amused” by the conversation, I thought about the “conflicts” I had at home.

Raised by a mother who grew up working on a farm in Ohio, my husband inherited some of her frugal habits. “Please turn off the light”, “Please turn off the water”, “Why go to Starbucks when you can make your own coffee?” he would blabber at me. For a while, I found it extremely irritating.

My parents did not grow up rich. But thrifiness has never been their priority and is certainly not a value that I was brought up with.

So you can imagine that we had a bit of conflict when my husband and I started our own household. My weekly trips to Target irked him to no end. I chalked it up to the compromises we both had to deal with.

It was to his great delight that I stopped buying “crap” and started turning off everything a couple of year ago.

“You’ve finally seen the light and come to my side,” he would tease.

“Not at all. I am not doing it to save money. I am all about creating a better environment. My goal is way nobler,” I would protest.

“But our actions and outcomes are exactly the same,” he would not give up.

“Yeah, but, but,” I would insist.

Then one day, I realized that it was not at all important that we came into this from orthogonal perspectives. Our results are the same - less resource consumption. That was the day we stopped splitting hair and called ourselves Fruecos.

These realizations broadened my view of environmentalism. We’ve all come to this from diverse perspectives and experience. Some of us want a better future for our children, some of us are heart-broken over the dim future of wild lives, some of us see the earth as God’s creation and are protecting it in his/her name, some of us are outdoor enthusiasts and want the beauty of nature here to stay, some of us outrightly reject wastefulness, and some of us are simply brought up with green values and practices.

Anika, my accidental fellow traveler wanted nothing to do with the precarious geo-political instability.

Whichever paths and whatever paces we have taken to get here, we are here. Forget about focusing on individual motivations, forget about arguing over the small differences in approaches. We are all on our way to achieve the same thing.

Now that is something to celebrate!

CindyW at Organicpicks

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