No time like the present

Many people have wondered about how quickly my trip abroad came up, and said that they realized I had been thinking about doing such a thing but not that it would come up so quickly. “I remember that you mentioned it at happy hour,” one of my friends remarked. I figure that the only way to get underway in something new – particularly if it’s wildly out of the ordinary and something that takes quite a bit of initiative – is to do it as soon as you can. It felt good to surprise people with the fact that indeed, my plane flight was at the end of this week, not a procrastinated date in the future. Even some of the people who I had explained so fully what I was trying to do with the establishment of my enterprise were surprised that I was in action. It is funny how people react as the time passes during and after the trip – many of your acquaintances don’t realize until you return that you had ever gone. I noticed this primarily when good friends of mine went biking across the states and were busy telling people about the trip only months after they'd come up with the idea.

I have a framed photo of Russell Train (1920- ), taken while reclined in his office at the world wildlife fund after his career government stint as the environmental protection guru. Indeed, he may have influenced environmental conservation as much as anyone in the 20th century. On safari in Africa around the age of 35, Train fell in love with the place, and thought that more money should go into wildlife conservation on the continent. He returned to Washington and began the papers for incorporation of his African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, which supported education of conservation workers in Africa—to achieve it he raised money in the States and offered scholarships to study and return to work in Africa for several years.

It worked, and it led to his career of more than forty years conserving natural places in America and abroad. The outcome interests me less than the initiative that it took to take the opportunity as it lie before him. Since we’re presented with so few in life, we ought to snatch them up when they come along. Train began printing newsletters, calling people for meetings during his spare time, and establishing more contacts with people already working in conservation, which in the 1960’s and 1970’s were relatively few. The personal motivation that he had mustered in the establishment of the AWLF paid off, and in the late 1960’s Train was offered posts at newly created agencies of the Nixon administration, notably the Council on Environmental Quality and the EPA. All of this is a way of saying that by taking the chance when it was ripe--it wouldn’t have happened the same way if he had waited--he gave himself a role in the environmental movement. How would he have known what he might do if he hadn’t seen the opportunity and seized it the minute he got home. Think of a beautiful woman walking by on the street: she passes only once.

In younger years it seems particularly difficult to discern what is what. How will the next few years turn out--the next five? There are many decisions and opportunities in this short life. But we’re lucky that so many of them seem big and difficult, because it allows us to do amazing things. And some do seem to come at us full stop--they take a big commitment and its in our nature to hesitate. While you make yourself vulnerable in making the decision, vulnerability is what gives you time to grow into the decision and embrace it. For all the inspiration in life, here's to help my friends and so many who inspire me to push ahead.

"In the 21st century, from here--five years more--the first question that people are going ask after your income per capita is how much [carbon] we emit."

"En este siglo XXI de aquí a cinco años lo primero que van a preguntar después del ingreso per capita es cuanto emite [de emisiones de carbono]" – Ricardo Lagos

A monkey and fish

As a member of the “developed world” hoping to help those working in the development South, I find the following adage quite apt. To be effective, we have to question whether one system is better than the other, what we’re really hoping to change, and how we should help. Things that appear superior are not necessarily so, and thinking relatively seems the only path to “improving” the plight of others.

“A monkey and a fish were caught in a great flood. The monkey sprang to safety in a tree. Looking down, he saw the fish swimming hard, head on into the current. At considerable risk, he moved out onto a branch and swung down to scoop the fish out of the flood. Great was his disappointment when he found out that the fish was not pleased to receive this technical assistance.” – Don Adams

Man and his War

One day after Independence Day weekend, Robert Strange McNamara passed away. Forty-two years earlier, he left the Defense Department of Lyndon Johnson. He lived a long life of 93 years and exactly one month. Obituaries focused on his role in the Vietnam “conflict” that tore this nation apart throughout the 1960s and early 70s, and remarked that three decades later – when he could first bring himself to speak or write on the subject – that he said the war was wrong. He and other Americans who waged the war had misunderstood the region and people they were fighting.

As Tim Weiner noted in his obituary in the New York Times, his role in this conflict and his loyalty to President Johnson will forever overshadow the good things that he did for the world. Paul Hendrickson wrote the most authoritative biography of the man, and got to the heart of the torment that McNamara felt after the Vietnam War. In what most call a retributive stint at the World Bank and later on the boards of many organizations working toward development of the third world, McNamara brought nations to the table that should have long been included in development dialogue. He continued to fight against nuclear arms and to redistribute wealth throughout the developing world. Certainly, McNamara was caught up in a war that was unwinnable – as he believed long before he could bring himself to resign – but I do believe that he kept on with the best of intentions and was only later able to demonstrate them at the World Bank and afterward.

Much of the rancor about McNamara is that he lived to an old age while so many died on his watch. But, he lived so many years because he was passionate about many things and had the same determination in his personal life. We archivists have joked that he likely rode his exercise bike – as he the day before his death. In the course of four days he would fly from Africa to India and then to Aspen for skiing, then to South America for a summit, then to Washington to start it over again.

War is a terrible thing. But if McNamara didn’t wage it, would someone have done so in his place? We must not forget that it was a nation at war rather than one man and it went on after his tenure. McNamara has remarked that despite the tremendous costs he would do it again; he said candidly that he did not live with regret, though many claim they could see it in his face.

While I lack the visceral reaction to the War that my parent’s generation does, I believe his legacy will prove to be something more. Perhaps he can demonstrate how much of the time we have a Secretary of Offense rather than a Secretary of Defense. That we wage the same Orwellian war in the that we always fight; indeed we are fighting now. To let him rest in peace, I recognize that despite ruining so many lives he made many better, and seemed to have the best of intentions at heart. His later correspondence, interviews, and work show the love that he had from others who knew him as a man rather only as the Secretary of Defense. As so many Americans stand over his grave to see that he stays in it – as Bob Dylan hoped to do – our forgiveness may be as important as his contrition.

"Ecological considerations have made us all more aware of the interdependencies of our world. We have come to see our planet as ‘spaceship earth’ [Barbara Ward]. But what we must not forget is that one-quarter of the passengers on that ship have luxurious first-class accommodations and the remaining three-quarters are traveling in steerage. That does not make for a happy ship – in space or anywhere else. All the less so when the steerage passengers realize that there are at hand the means to make the accommodations more reasonable for everyone."

-- Robert S McNamara, ca. 1984