Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [233]
In the exciting final scene of the environmentalist version, a scuffle breaks out between Leia, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca on one side, and the pacifists on the other. At last the pacifists chase those four from the room and from the film. They’re never seen again, which isn’t really important since in this version they’re minor characters anyway. The Death Star looms closer and closer. Audience members chew their fingernails as they wait to see whether the letters and petitions and lawsuits will work their magic. Viewers see lasers inside the Death Star warming up to destroy the planet. The lasers glow a hellish red. The camera switches to cover the endangered planet. Suddenly a cheer will rise up from the audience as they see a small bright speck emerge from the planet’s surface and speed into space. “Yes!” they will roar, as they learn that all of the intrepid environmentalist protesters were able to get off the planet moments before it got blown up!
Coda: The final shot of the movie, revealing what a complete triumph this was for the rebels, will be a still showing an article on the lower-left of page forty-three of the New Empire Times devoting a full three sentences to the destruction of the planet. Yes! The protesters got some press!473
During the Q & A of a talk I gave last week, someone asked, “How many environmentalists does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“I’ll bite,” I said, “How many?”
“None,” he replied. “They just sit in the dark and whine about fossil fuel emissions.”
I didn’t get it. Evidently, neither did anyone else in the audience. Nobody laughed. I, as well as the rest of the audience, ended up more or less scratching our heads.
Later that night, an answer came to me: Ten. One to write the lightbulb a letter requesting that it change. Four to circulate online petitions. One to file a lawsuit demanding it change. One to send the lightbulb lovingkindness™, knowing that this is the only way real change occurs. One to accept the lightbulb precisely the way it is, clear in the knowledge that to not accept another is to do great harm to oneself. One to write a book about how and why the lightbulb needs to change. And finally, one to smash the fucking lightbulb, because we all know it’s never going to change.
Acknowledgments
AS ALWAYS, MY FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT DEBT OF GRATITUDE is to the land where I live, which sustains and supports me. Equal to this is my debt to the muse, who gives me these words, and without whom I cannot imagine my life. Thanks also to the source of my dreams.
My thanks to the redwoods, red and Port Orford cedars, alders, and cascara; the Del Norte, Olympic, slender, and Pacific giant salamanders; the Pacific tree and northern red-legged frogs; the rough-skinned newts; the spotted and barred owls, the phoebes, pileated woodpeckers, hummingbirds, herons, mergansers, and so many others; the coho and chinook salmon, the steelhead; the banana slugs, the flying ants, and the solitary bees. Thank you to the reeds, rushes, sedges, grasses, and ferns, the huckleberries, thimbleberries, salal, and salmonberries. The chanterelles, turkey tails, amanitas, and so many others. My thanks to the gray foxes, the black bears, Douglas squirrels, the moles, the shrews, the bats, the woodrats, the mice, the porcupines, and the shy aplodontia. My thanks to all the others who graciously allow me to share their home, and who teach me how to be human.
There are others who have helped with this book. They include, among others: Melanie Adcock, Roianne Ahn, Anthony