Old New Column: Toxic Fumes, The Litterati

A few months back, I started writing a humor column for East Tennessee's Environmental Journal, The Hellbender Press (http://www.hellbenderpress.com/), under the pseudonym Robin Goodfellow. Here's the first one.

The Litterati

We have met the litterbug, and he is squashing us

By Robin Goodfellow

Litter is a problem, and we are all party to it. Some of us may be litter-littles while others are litter-lottas, but we all contribute. We are all litterati.

Part of our problem may be natural. After all, we are animals, and many animals don’t clean up after themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stepped barefoot into my backyard only to yank my foot back, yipping in pain and surprise, the shard of a half-eaten walnut shell imbedded in my foot, deposited by a squirrel indifferent to the concept of "litter."

I’ve stepped into much worse remnants as well, such as leftovers from predatory repasts and the inevitable excretions that are their consequence. All sorts of animals leave their trash in my yard. Why should I, no less an animal, care where I leave my litter?

Our problem is also cultural. We are so conditioned to living with trash, we scarcely see it. On a recent walk through downtown Knoxville, I made an effort to see my environment. And I saw. I saw legions of gum wrappers dancing on the wind, tree planters that could have been ashtrays for all the cigarette butts choking them, curbs overflowing with discarded fast-food containers, plastic soda bottles, chips bags, and other detritus, dog turds sprouting on every greensward. On seemingly every street corner were metal bins the size of freight trucks, whose sole function is as repositories for our larger litter – toilets for the waste pouring forth from downtown’s "revitalization."

What I saw was that we, as a culture, accept litter large and small, actual and symbolic, as a part of life. We must. How else could that repulsive, that hideous, that grotesque bulk, the Knoxville Convention Center, come to be squatting on a prime piece of downtown real estate, plopped there like the bowel movement of a fantastical, cubist elephant?

Yes, the rubbish of our lifestyles sums to more than literal litter. If we have garages crammed with unused, but somehow "necessary," junk (as I do), we are litterati. If we have cars dribbling fluids and belching fumes (as I do), weare litterati. If we advertise on the billboard eyesores that clot our landscape, that is litter. If we purchase goods from those advertisers (as I do), we are litterati. I am casting no stones. I’m as litterati as the next gal.

But our cultural failings as a whole are even grander. What makes us a litterati society is reckless, wasteful, exorbitant consumption. And virtually all of us partake. Almost all of us, indulging our lifestyles, buy into some aspect of our consumerist society. We concede small points or large in our desire for "more" or "easier" or "faster," making us as culpable for the resultant destruction to our environment as the litterattiest.

So, if we stood by while taxpayer money built that cathedral of false profits, the Knoxville Convention Center, we are litterati. If we concede without protest when an arctic wildlife preserve is drilled for oil, we are litterati. If we turn blind eyes (and pinched noses) to relaxed emissions standards for coal-fired plants, we are litterati.

Because, you see, we know better. True, we are animals like other animals. But we are unlike them as well, aren’t we? Whether from divine revelation to the spirit or rational examination leading to mind’s enlightenment, humans should know better than to exhaust and foul their environment. Yet, no "Homo sapiens," no wise human beings, are we. "Bestia quod plus sapere debet,"* that’s humankind: The animal that ought to know better.

And as long as we know better but act worse, we will be litterati.

*Thanks to Maria at "Ask an Expert" (http://www.allexperts.com) for help with the Latin translation.