Blog Post by Ayoola White, Emerging Technology Librarian, Jersey City Free Public Library
Thinking about what Earth Day means to me, I cannot help but be reminded of when I was six or seven years old, and I decided to throw an Earth Day party. The inspiration may have come from an article in Highlights Magazine, from the eco-conscious children’s computer game Ozzie’s World, or from some other source entirely. I don’t remember what specific games or food were at the party, but I remember how heavily matters of environmental destruction weighed on my mind from an early age. I had already grasped the importance of celebrating our environment and all that it provides to us.
In library land, we are well-acquainted with data, and for good reason. We are often tasked with defending the existence of our positions and of our very institutions. Likewise, climate change conversations are replete with quantitative data that we use to urge decisive action: the meters of potential sea level rise, the acreage of melting ice at the polar caps, the number of species facing (or having already undergone) extinction, the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and more. I would never want to undercut the vitality of gathering these data, especially considering that certain activists and scholars around the world have risked and even lost their lives to collect, preserve, and share this information. Something that I observe, at least in myself, however, is that these facts and figures spur petrifying overwhelm more often than not.
For my adult self, as with my child self, Earth Day is an opportunity to celebrate and a day to imagine, both individually and collectively. As I have become increasingly interested in science fiction, I have begun to grasp how powerful it is to combine quantitative information with speculation, imagination, and ingenuity. Writers such as Octavia E. Butler wrestled with the real ramifications of global warming in her novels The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents, at a time when the topic was not in the public consciousness to the degree that it is today.
To paraphrase an insight from the social justice activist adrienne maree brown, our current social structures are largely the result of specific people’s imaginations. Moreover, so many elements of our society have the impact of undermining the nearly bottomless imaginations that are commonly present in our childhoods. After all, it is difficult to sustain mental energy for dealing with the most pressing global problems of our time if you are dealing with the welfare system, the school-to-prison pipeline, gentrification, ongoing colonization, food insecurity, precarious job security, the possibility of deportation, or any or all of the above. Knowing this, I find it helpful to reflect on the question of who is allowed to imagine, and whose imaginings are taken seriously enough to one day become reality?
Thus, I am on an ongoing mission to reclaim my imagination. This Earth Day, I am inspired by the many examples of people using their ingenuity, often in combination with reclaimed ancestral knowledge, to allow themselves and their communities to thrive. An example that comes to mind is the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm, where members of the Ramapough Lenape Nation cultivate crops to heal themselves from the effects of toxic waste that automotive companies dumped on their land for years. I also think of Yacouba Sawadogo, a man from Burkina Faso who utilized an ancient (and ridiculed) agricultural technique called zai to reverse desertification across thousands of hectares of land. I think of Earthships, I think of permaculture gardens, and I think of farm sanctuaries. I take inspiration from all these projects and more because they are examples of people practicing prefigurative politics, building the world they want to live in and reminding themselves why they continue to persevere.
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