Confessions of an Eco-Sinner

Today I spent several hours hanging around Southpark Mall waiting for my new prescription sunglasses to be made (hooray for an FSA!).  During those hours I read a good portion of my current book, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, by Fred Pearce.  In Confessions Pearce recalls his journey to find the sources of all the accoutrements he uses as he engages in the Western lifestyle.  Here he searches out the origins of his favorite fruit, the banana, to the mine that gave the gold for his wedding band.  As I read part three this afternoon (about China and how nearly everything he had was produced there) I was reminded about a book I read last winter and my favorite places in North Carolina.

Last fall I happened to be in Nashville, TN for the Southern Festival of Books and purchased Ron Rash’s most recent novel Serena.  Here he tells a fictional tale of a company logging the North Carolina mountains and the toll it takes on all the people involved and the land.  Here, with vivid detail, Rash describes how the owners of the logging company viewed the trees.  They were to be cut down for industry and when those forests were felled they would move onto the next forest and do the same.

Rash’s story also talks of how many of the national forests and parks, specifically the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, were formed.  They came about when many people saw the destruction of the forests and were grieved.  They drew a metaphorical line in the dirt and said no more.  This process did damage as well with forcing families to move from their land so parks could be created but they did save forests and protect land.

In other areas where the forests were completely decimated the government acquired the land and created national forests.  Places like the Pisgah National Forest, one of my favorite areas, look today as if they have been there for centuries but in reality the trees we now see are second growth.  They have grown over the last century since the last logging crew vacated to greener pastures.

As I was reading Pearce’s book this afternoon and seeing what he saw as he visited cities in China that very well manufactured the computer I’m typing with and the shirt on my back I was reminded of this transition in America.  Once the forests were practically decimated people realized what they were doing and stopped it.  Presently in China, and other Asian nations, people are ravaging their forests in the same fashion.  They are felling rain forests for their lumber and using them to build flooring and furniture.

Eventually their forests will be near extinction and they will realize, as some Americans did in the early twentieth century that they need to be protected.  At least I hope they do.

So far this book has been quite sobering; it is indictment on my consumer based lifestyle.  As Pearce tracks down the sources of his stuff he’s tracking down the sources of my stuff.  This book has already led me to question many of my behaviors and hopefully it will continue to do as I finish it this week.