newsroom

TODAY Monday 5 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Divorce, Mothers, Equality

I am a divorced guy, and so part of the problem, environmentally speaking.

This column is being tapped out on a kitchen table in what was once a "worker's cottage" in Amherst, Massachusetts. I am in Amherst now because we were in Amherst ten years ago when my wife and I separated. Our two kids, then nine and six, were to be cared for under a joint custody arrangement whereby my wife got the family house on Dana Street and I was to maintain a separate residence nearby so I could take the kids on weekends. I am (happily) obliged under the agreement to carry this on until the six year old enters college in the fall of 1999. Divorce sucks, but this one less than some others.

Because I could find no employment in the Amherst area that did not involve the world of academic politics (ask me about it when you can spare an hour or two), I went to New York for a good job. One-room apartment, futon. Almost every Friday I would ride a train to Springfield, Massachusetts, where I would walk to a municipal garage and drive my car to Amherst. On Sunday I'd go back. Four-and-a-half hours door to door.

I have since re-married, and the apartment is bigger and the bed's off the floor, but the routine abides. And thereby my role in environmental degradation.

Because -- contrary to the tradition in which I was raised -- I believe that the definition of freedom should include the freedom to dissolve a marriage, I had occasioned a quick increase in consumption of fuel and resources that wouldn't have occurred if the marriage had held. Where four people had lived under one roof within a mile of jobs and schools, sharing one motor vehicle, they now occupied three dwellings, owned two cars and had to move around a lot more. (I'd point out, though, that the combined square footage of our three dwellings was less than the size of a walk-in closet in Pacific Palisades.)

And it's not just my divorce. My mother -- contrary to the tradition in which I was raised -- lives in a "planned community" in Florida instead of in my house or, better yet, in my sister's house. If she wants to visit her four children, she has to fly to four different places from North Carolina to Massachusetts, or else we have to fly to her. Ecologically, historically, Mom and the four siblings and our spouses and kids and a few worthless brothers-in-law should be living in three or four small farmhouses within five miles of each other in County Donegal, running unprofitable dairy operations and drinking our way through lamentations of lost promise.

One more: the emancipation of women. The swift transformation of the American economy by the increase of women in the workplace has impelled a large new demand for energy and resources, particularly in transportation. Two-car families are a commonplace, even when family income is well below the national median. Public transport is so bad in most parts of the country that you just can't rely on it. Sprawl and contraception combine to make it hard for neighborhoods to achieve the critical mass of under-14 density needed so that kids can entertain themselves by taking over the streets in front of their houses; as a consequence, suburban parents (mostly mothers) spend a lot of time and many miles transporting their children to scattered sites. Working mothers typically follow a complicated daily itinerary (day care center, dry cleaner, office, grocery, day care center, mall, home) that few public transport systems could accommodate. And because working parents are concerned with their children's safety during the long days when they're away at work, and because they want their kids to go to good schools and live among some trees, they generally can't be persuaded to leave those suburbs in favor of the ecologically-preferable inner cities.

Well? Not many people I know are willing -- within their own lives, at least -- to limit the rights to divorce, to separate and state-subsidized care of the elderly, and to equality of opportunity for women. Not to mention the right to pull down a six figure salary if it comes your way. For even the hardest of hard core enviros, first things first. We wrestle with our prosperity and our freedoms, intertwined so much as they are with the fate of natural things.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

It's Monday, our big change day in the Newsroom section. Terry Tempest Williams is now available through the Archives at the bottom of the Op-Ed, which this week features Doug Foy in praise of the humble snow tire. Hibernicus on Al Gore (can't get enough of the graphic) stays as the Capitol Hill Spy. And today we introduce a new feature in the Newsroom: Works In Progress, a place where people who are doing tangible things for the environment explain their projects. First up is the redoubtable, infinitely resourceful J. Baldwin, who tells you about a solar-powered barge that cleans up polluted rivers cheaply and effectively. Take a look and then tell us about your own works, in whatever state of progress.

 

5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway

Talk Back