We Have Met the Enemy...Why Are You Laughing?

I remember laughing out loud when my sixth grade teacher told our class in 1964, that just one hundred years earlier, people had protested coal burning locomotives, because they were afraid the smoke would blacken the sky.

I saw in my mind the wide blue sky of central Oregon, blown by winds that could easily disperse even the blackest cloud puffed out by any quaint train.

 

I don’t think I became aware of the concept of ecology until 1970, my junior year in high school, when the word “environment” suddenly stopped being a word you would apply to interior decorating.  That April, there was a buzz about a national “Earth Day,” mostly from the teachers.

I do remember my dad, a teacher, laughing at a Walt Kelly “Pogo” cartoon:  “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”  I didn’t understand why Dad got such a kick out of that turn of phrase.  I stored it away as something adults would laugh at, something I might be able to throw out sometime when I wanted to impress my elders with my wit.

I’m afraid I burst out with a laugh in a college history class when my professor quoted Admiral Perry in the War of 1812, “We have met the enemy, and he is ours.”  Dr. Huxford, didn’t miss a beat, and said, “So you know the phrase from Pogo!”

By then, my generation was protesting all sorts of things, from the Vietnam War to “Male Chauvinism.”  A few forward-thinking hippies were still harping on the environment, but honestly, I still had only the vast glories of Oregon and Idaho in my experience.  Anything I read or saw on the news seemed as remote as the Iliad or the War of 1812. 

Yes, I conscientiously refused to litter and made sure no one I was with threw trash anywhere but in a trashcan.  But I didn’t give a second thought to where garbage went from there.  It just went out of my sight, to a landfill somewhere, or the city dump.  Why would I care about that? 

Almost 50 years later, I have seen a little more of life, and of the planet I live on.  The things I read and study are more real to me now.

I’ve been to a landfill or two, and water treatment plants. I’ve lived in cities where I’ve seen the air turn brown, and struggled to breathe it.  I’ve paid taxes and voted on measures to try to stop the trashing of the limited space on our planet.  I’ve read the theories, and seen the documentaries about global warming, and joined in the debates.  I’ve researched and written about the toxic mess of plastic floating in our seas. 

So on this Earth Day I look back on my schoolgirl enthusiasms and smile that I celebrated April 22, 1970 by wearing blue, green, brown and white.  And that, at that time, that was about all I could think to do.

 

I shake my head now at the message that we have met the enemy and he is us.  We hate to see ourselves as doing anything really wrong.  But until we face up to it, we won’t be able to go forward.  I’m hopeful that we will use our inventiveness to come up with real solutions -- ways to turn the tide of consumer waste and thoughtless trashing of our planet. 

It’s time to grow up, and start looking at ourselves, so we can start solving the problem.