Opinion | Let’s Call Our Present Moment on Earth What It Is: Obscene

It is springtime, and I want to turn to thoughts of love.

In my case, love of this world, love of nature, love of our life in and as part of it. How I wish we all still loved that way.

New York City’s winter leaf cover has been blown away and stuffed into large, shiny, pristine black plastic bags. Left behind is the detritus of winter’s walkers. That would be the squashed plastic bottles, baggies full of dog poop, takeout containers (some with dinners that rats missed), dead balloons, lost neoprene gloves and abandoned plastic toys, pacifiers, baby bottles, combs, condoms. That’s just what I spotted in the first mile of a recent walk along Riverside Drive heading south from the 150s.

It was an unseasonably warm winter, a concept that could be rendered meaningless within a decade, as memories of snowfall fade. My spring walks are not exactly comforting. But I try to find the beauty with my stalwart walking pals. I am constantly spotting an exotic early bloom or a vivid unfurling of a new sort of plant, and, with exclamations of wonder and surprise, we surround my find, a new life form, perhaps. We soon realize we are gazing at the neon fronds of a partly melted hairbrush or the vivid color of the fraying ring of a soda bottle. A new form of lifelessness, maybe even an anti-life form.

As I was walking recently, I pondered, with a sense of weary bemusement, the recent decision by scientists, after nearly 15 years of debate, against declaring that we have entered a new epoch of geologic time in Earth’s 4.6 billion years, the era that many have long been calling the Anthropocene. Scientists could not yet agree that humans have irretrievably altered the geologic condition of the world enough to have earned ourselves an epoch of narcissism. Of course, by the time we have done so, we will be way past the point of drawing such lines in the rock. The reality then will be more self-evident than it is even today.

So for now, my advice: Forget the Anthropocene. We are in the Obscene Era.

Obscene as in offensive to moral principles. Repugnant, disgusting. Ill-omened or abominable, if etymology is your thing.

We have a plastic crisis, starting with the trash we see casually discarded in our streets, parks, streams and oceans. And yet the production of plastics continues to rise. For decades, the plastics industry sold the public on the material with the misleading message that it would be recycled. Very little is, with recovery and recycling rates at less than 10 percent globally. But the problem is far deeper, as a lengthy report in the journal Annals of Global Health said last year: “It is now clear that current patterns of plastic production, use and disposal are not sustainable and are responsible for significant harms to human health, the environment and the economy, as well as for deep societal injustices.”

And plastic is but one of the many environmental perils we face.

Last year was by far the planet’s warmest, coming close to reaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius rise since preindustrial days — the point that climate scientists have cautioned against exceeding. Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels also reached record highs last year. Methane leaks have been underreported for years. And yet, at an energy conference in Houston this past week, the head of the world’s largest oil producer told fossil fuel executives, “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.” Applause followed.

Millions of people continue to be exposed to harmful chemicals in food and other consumer goods. Many of the chemicals in household products are detectable in our bloodstreams, and some have been linked to cancer, developmental disorders and reproductive and endocrine issues. Air pollution remains a major problem. While the United States has made great strides in improving air quality, airborne mercury and soot remain problems. Worldwide, air pollution is a global health crisis and is estimated to cause nearly 6.7 million premature deaths annually. And then there is deforestation, the acidification of the ocean, drought and the loss of biodiversity — not a complete list by any means.

At the same time, the clash between the two candidates for president could not be more defining. If the conservative Heritage Foundation’s 887-page “Mandate for Leadership” is any guide for what to expect from another Trump presidency — and that is exactly what it is intended to be, should Donald Trump win — we will watch as the Biden administration’s “climate fanaticism” undergoes a “whole of government unwinding.” That, too, will be part of the Obscene Era.

I sometimes wish I could be in denial. I wish I could take a walk and not see the ugly carelessness. But denial is a luxury; “better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” I’ve made a choice not to be paralyzed by despair. It is why I do the work I do, organizing mothers and caregivers to push our lawmakers and regulators to protect us.

The nation has made significant progress in the last few years, with historic investments in clean energy and clean transportation. President Biden’s administration is tackling the compounding and braided crises of climate degradation and pollution and toxic chemicals. It is foundational work, and we must continue it. The alternative is unspeakably obscene.

A springtime walk, soft breezes against the cheek, sunshine slanting in with warmth, shouldn’t be a time for cursing. And look! That enormous raven; you don’t see that often in New York City. But it turns out to be a tangled mess of black plastic bags riding a thermal updraft. Until we harness the will to end this era, until we see it for what it is, we will leave it etched into the very rocks of the ages, with, perhaps, not many around to read the message: We were here, but we did not make the choice to cherish all that was beautiful and beloved in our all-too-human era.