Please Enjoy Your War

"God help me, but I do love it so.
I love it more than my life."
-George C. Scott as General Patton in Patton

I've said this for years: if we really want to take the environment on as a serious issue in Canada, we need to declare war. It's a plain fact of history that we just don't get much of consequence achieved in this country until it's all on the line. We're complacent. We're busy. We're not idealogues. We're mostly isolated from the tough stuff and would rather just get on with our own business. I can't say I like this about us, but I'm afraid those are the facts.

Yet give us a battle, a real one with a noble goal and high stakes and a need for everyone to pull together, and we manage to fight with ferocity, often overcoming the odds to earn an unexpected victory for the good guys.

In the past, the great battles have been for king and country; to a lesser extent, for territory, democracy, and at times, even for the sake of unfortunate other people. Today's great battle is for ourselves, and most importantly, for future generations.

I stopped calling myself an environmentalist a long time ago. It wasn't true. Sure, I compost, I care, and I try to stay aware. But that should be the bare minimum, and it hardly deserves a special title. Besides, I burn a lot of gas. Gasoline is the new nicotine: everyone knows it's disgusting, but just try to quit...

But you don't have to be an environmentalist to know the environment is the most important issue of our time. You don't even have to believe in global warming. You just need to look outside on a smoggy day, or fly over a clearcut, or try drinking the water in your local urban area. Unless you are a total dolt, you will admit that something needs to be done and fast.

I say, it's time to declare war. That's how things get done in Canada. Not by pushing papers around. Not by endless embarrassing debates in the House of Commons. By action, by everyone. War. War. War on whatever dirties the air, whatever poisons the water, whatever strips the land of green without consideration or compensation. A war where the enemy isn't someone you can shoot, of course. A war without killing, without violence; a war where man-against-man violence is ineffective.

This is a war of ideas and practices. It will be difficult and at times dirty, and it may seem completely unwinnable from day one. That's no excuse not to go on the march. And I will tell you something about this war, a strange secret that has been true of other wars before: you will love it. You will love the sacrifices you make. You will love the chances you take. You will love the way it engages you, takes over your life, casts your apathetic past in a whole new light. You will love more than your life because it matters more than your life.

I heard a story once of a man who was a solider at the Battle of the Bulge. He was asked what it was like to rise from the trench and throw himself into the line of fire with his mates. He said simply "It was sublime." All of his life had condensed into a single infinite moment of complete engagement. When you engage, when we all engage, we will be convinced, as Patton was, that this noble, awful battle is the very thing we are here on Earth to do.

Please enjoy your war. The sooner, the better.