I used to teach outdoor education. We would take students from high schools, mostly in urban areas, out into the woods, or the desert, or the ocean, and teach them about the ecology of the area, or about the things they were learning in high school and how they applied to the dynamics of the environment. One of the first things we always taught was a “Sense of Place,” as in, you should look and feel around you to see what is going on. Understand where you are and your place in it. Be a part of it, or, more to the point, admit and understand and realize that you are a part of it, and move on with that. Feeling a part of what is around you allows you to engage with what is happening, and you can’t walk away from the idea that what you do affects the world around you and what is happening to the world around you affects you.

That kind of a sense is not present in much of America. Certainly not in Washington D.C. What is there is a separation, and a sort of hands-off approach to dealing with the environment. We are the number 2 polluter in the world and we don’t have a bill to address climate change. We skipped out on the Copenhagen summit, and instead Obama went in like Superman and tried to take credit for a half-hearted semi-agreement. It was ok and better than nothing, but it wasn’t what was needed, and now our bill, still upassed and far from it, is silent and getting diluted even as I type this.

If we wait until after the fall elections we won’t even be able to call it a climate change bill. We’ll have to call it “The What We Did Because We Felt Like We Had To Pretend To Do Something” bill. And then we’ll turn our concerns to more important matters, like Wall Street, or getting home prices back up. Maybe even dealing with the fallout from the BP oil leak. Remember, that wasn’t a disaster, it was a man-made mistake. We did that. And it’s a great example of what is happening as we continue to act without feeling that we are connected to the world around us, but instead that we are living on it, like it’s a room we are in that we can leave when it starts to smell. We can’t.

Cap on emissions? "I honestly have to tell you this is going to be a steep uphill climb ... even the utility piece ... and we may not be able to do that," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Yep. Nothing is going to be easy. The U.S. is more concerned about our economy and world dominance than anything else, let alone the simple reality that we are destroying the world we live on by dominating it- it’s not a new idea, I know, but it hits me so hard when I see headlines more and more about how hard the climate change bill is to pass. Come on.

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks