“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”
Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321)
The Divine Comedy
There is a point in time in all exploration missions where uncertainty commands your undivided attention and the success of the mission hangs in the balance. Decisions can no longer be obtained from the operations manual. This is called uncharted territory, a theater of the unexpected. In rocket science they call the event a “flame out” when one stage of a booster rocket is expended and no longer provide a function to the completion of the mission. It becomes a liability exerting drag on the vessel, distorting the trajectory, creating an obstacle to other equipment. Though a planned sequence the spent rocket stage is jettisoned and the next phase of the mission begins. After flame out danger of failure is high, for the thousands of pounds of useless junk must be detached to ensure that the vessel can continue in its manifest journey.
Approaching the milestone of thirty years of trajectory in my career, I have achieved a total flame out. As it is with all engineered systems catastrophic collapse never occurs in a failure of a single system but is the occurrence of multiple failures in related subsystems that become a perfect storm culminating in a catastrophic failure. In my case the small system failures are fairly apparent. It is an industry procurement system that consistently either significantly undervalues or totally ignores capability and experience, allowing unqualified and ill-equipped companies to undertake contracts with a tacit acceptance of underachievement. The result is a continued proliferation of decades old ineffective solutions that have created the environmental crisis we are confronted with. The procurement industry insulates itself by promoting accountant and managers to positions of authority, until they achieve maximum incompetence. They measure progress in the most inept distillation of the concept of capitalism, the absolute short term triple bottom line without incorporation of any long term impacts or considering the costs of extraction of natural resources from the system. Even the most prudent of financial accounting which is operational costs has been abandon for the cheap, bottom dollar; trim the budget at all cost mentality by our procurement industry. This is the primary obstacle to the introduction of innovation and creativity within the system. Unless you can produce a disruptive technology, a technology which is so clearly more effective and efficient that it overcomes the great risk of adoption by the atrophied decision makers, it is dismissed without consideration. More importantly if it does peak an interest due to its amazing potential, you must be able to immediately deliver the new solution below the existing cost model. It becomes a death sentence attempting to deliver a new technology in a competitive pricing scenario against some Chinese factory which has been pumping out cheap, antiquated products using slave labor wages and amortized machinery.
The system failure in the green industry is equally disheartening and also contributes to my lethargic ambivalence to the future. The manufacturing industry has finally gotten the message after three decades of pounding them with a sledge hammer. “Green” products are now the primary focus of just about all industries that wish to remain competitive, as they appoint sustainability officers and investigate the environmental costs of their products and production facilities. Unfortunately the path of least resistance is not reinventing their products or production processes, but rather “green washing”, telling the consumer some half truths or out right lies about how the company’s commitment of sustainability exceeds all others while continuing to operate under the same destructive methodology. I am appalled at how simplistic the general public has become to advertizing claims. Just tell me seven times and I will believe anything you tell me without questioning its source. An example is the artificial turf industry’s claims of environmental benefits, are we so stupid to believe that installing synthetic turf helps the environment, apparently so because municipalities around the country are funding projects based on their environmental claims. Here’s what one of the most advanced water management agency, the Irvine Water District is saying about synthetic turf. “Many environmental benefits result from replacing turf grass with synthetic turf. At a typical residence (with about 750 square feet of turf) the installation of synthetic turf can conserve approximately 22,000 gallons of water per year. Synthetic turf also requires no fertilizer, no pesticides, no mowing and reduces urban runoff caused by irrigation. It also cuts down on the amount of green waste, like lawn clippings, going into landfills.”
Let’s think about the synthetic turf industry’s environmental claims that they save water, fertilizer and the labor for mowing. They don’t water synthetic turf but they should because it increases the surface temperature of a field by 60 degrees contributing to unhealthy increases in the urban heat island effect, and increasing air conditioning demands. They don’t use fertilizer, but they use wetting agents and antimicrobial chemicals to control pathogens. They don’t mow, but they ride around on tractors and groom almost as frequently. If that’s not enough now let’s examine the composition of the product. There is nothing even close to green technology involved in the synthetic turf industry. It is one of the blackest and dirty heavy chemical oil based industries around. The components that make the rug are polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, urethane, adhesives, solvents, colorants, fiberglas as well as other toxic elements. That being said the product is then filled with silica sand an EPA registered carcinogen and waste SBR rubber from discarded tires. SBR rubber is the perfect product because there are millions of scrape tires because they are too toxic to dispose of in most landfills. Here’s a partial list of the chemicals identified as being released in SBR rubber from confirmatory analytical studies at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station:
“Benzothiazole: Skin and eye irritation, harmful if swallowed. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
Butylated hydroxyanisole: Recognized carcinogen, suspected endocrine toxicant toxicant, gastrointestinal toxicant, immunotoxicant, neurotoxicant, skin and sense-organ toxicant. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
n-hexadecane: severe irritant based on human and animal studies. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
4-(t-octyl) phenol: corrosive and destructive to mucous membranes. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.”
The study also detected metals that were leached from the tire crumbs. Zinc was the predominant metal, but selenium, lead and cadmium were also identified. The problem is many, if not most, of the compounds present in tire crumbs and shreds have been incompletely tested for human health effects. In some cases, a partial assessment can be based on the estimated actions of a chemical class or on structural activity characteristics. The concentrations reported in various studies indicated that chemical concentrations exceeded hazardous waste site limits in some cases. What the hell are people thinking? Are we so ignorant to be incapable of making this comparison and understanding which is least harmful?
The public could be forgiven if this was an isolated incident but it is not. Every industry now is hiring legions of “green washers” to devise elaborate stories to convince the public that their toxic ridden product is really Mother Nature in disguise. To make thing worst these corporate giants are buying new green technologies and burying them so they will not disrupt the cash flow from their flagship environmentally toxic solutions. Why invest in hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade production processes when you can spend a couple million to maintain the status quo. It could be decades before these viable green solutions receive the light of day. How do you assemble an environmental army when the public is continuously fed the opiate of corporate advertizing?
For over three decades I have stood before hundreds of thousands of people advocating for inclusive integrated solutions to our world one which values ecological cycles and connections. I have railed against the worst offenders of the gate keepers against change, challenging the flawed logic and absolute ignorance. I have volunteered for dozens of boards and positions of influence in the industry, where I could help craft policies which would steer the world in a different direction. In the after hours when the sky is dark I have written article after article explaining the simple realization of a dream. A fire in my belly drove me on day after day to make a difference. When I was confronted with failure it angered me and motivated to push on the accelerator even more. I was convinced that if I was to fail I should rather do it sooner, throwing caution to the wind. At times I would cross over to compulsive obsession always looking how to influence change. My motto was “If only I can light enough fuses, maybe someday it will ignite a rocket which can illuminate mankind” Rather lofty and foolish goals for an individual which such a limited set of talents.
The final event that culminated in the perfect storm and my subsequent emotional collapse was the loss of a deeply personal relationship which provided me a reason to continue. Someone who I was mentoring to stand beside me and make the dream come true, someone who could finish my sentences when I had not the will to carry my weight further, someone that knew me better than anyone else in this world. The tragic and abrupt loss of this close relationship was the final piece of my devise. The motivation for continuing my individual assault on the world evaporated whisked away on the breeze in the blink on an eye. My view of the world while in the past although caustic was always optimistic and hopeful but is now brutally fatalistic and bleak. I no longer believe that I possess a key to change the tidal wave of apathy; instead I am content to allow the wave to wash over me and become another lost soul hiding from the reality of my failures. Beneath our brave facades we are all deeply flawed and weak spirits that maintain balance in the faith of a better future. Given the right conditions when our fragilities are exposed our strength disappears leaving only the confused insecurities of a child lost in the woods.
Is this the accumulation of thirty years of effort? A complete emotional flame out, like an old boxer which has had the will beaten out of him, no longer capable of defending a small piece of canvas with ferocity of a lion, but willing to turn his back and walk away? I press my hands to the gaping wound over my heart and watch the life blood of passion and desire bleed from my soul. The most frightening realization is that it concerns me little as despair fills my thoughts. In an attempt to resurrect a healing process I have once again come the healing waters of my youth, the ocean with all its mystical powers of life and faith. This time is different the sound of the pounding surf only echoes my abandonment and loneliness mocking my significance by wiping my footsteps from the sand. The sky is empty, heavy with sorrow and I don’t know how to change it.
Like the spent booster rocket I am without director or purpose, frozen in time. My mind searches for comfort and solace but the only thing that would retrieve me from this pit are unattainable and beyond my meager reach, for change will not come. Instead I dream about what could have been. In that dream I find fulfillment, faith in the future and the simple pleasures which made me smile. Until then “Houston we have a problem”
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness.”
Henri Nouwen
Henri Nouwen
