The Carnage Of Abundance

Our journey into Barack Obama’s America starts with Alaska, the least crowded state of America’s 51, where the drama of ecological havoc is taking place between a handful of inhabitants and a territory three times bigger than France, rich in oil, zinc and whales.

The more we move away from our civilization, taking refuge in a wild world, the more we think we’re going to escape civilization’s excesses and flaws. It is obviously an illusion. Alaska is one of the ends of the earth. The region is, for Americans, a “big empty space” whose governor was, until July 3, a chick named Sarah Palin. She made herself famous by uttering a number stupidities during the last presidential campaign. “Every time I say that I’m from Alaska, everybody laughs,” Jamie Bollenbach, a painter, tells me. The nearest town to Anchorage is a three-hour plane ride away. Flying to New York takes a day.

Past the stuffed bears, decorating Anchorage’s airport (those who are alive gladly attack joggers and cyclists), a sort of Far East Russian panorama, accustomed to secrecy, is displayed before us. The small towns or occasional hamlets one can find may have 680,000 inhabitants – many islands set in the middle of a wilderness free from human presence. There are 1,000 kilometers of road in this Alaska, whose size is three times that of France, with fewer roads than the whole state of Washington. One travels from one side to the other via small planes. Places are so calm, you feel they are haunted. When the spring comes, the mountains are still covered by a blanket of snow. The sun constantly hides between the rosy echo of the dusk, never showing itself; a silvery halo hides behind some clouds, themselves a mix of snowy darkness. Every detail displays itself with glittering accuracy. A few farms, set in the middle of white meadows, look like gingerbread sprinkled with sugar and set in powdery depths. Snowdrift bend larch branches to the ground.

Wild rivers break the ice that covers them, life resurfacing in a shudder. Hardened puddles creak under shoes; the soil exhales scents of mud and wet leaves, of pine-trees and iodine. Men are rough and friendly, never are affected by anything. The continual earthquakes and the volcanic eruptions of Mount Redoubt, which regularly cover the houses with ash, liven up a hard way of life. “It’s fun to be here,” says Bill White, a journalist who can no longer leave this corner of the Earth. On the license plates of the cars, one can read Alaska’s motto: “The Last Frontier.”

I came here for the first time 25 years ago. I don’t recognize the place any more. The United States built Anchorage the same way Honolulu, San Diego or Wichita were built: as a city, interwoven with freeways and parking lots. One is not struck by the architectural mediocrity set in this delightful landscape; it’s just the way the natural space was spoiled. It’s as if the land and the climate were not important. Men don’t adapt there; they spread all over the place. They grow towers made of glass (the headquarters of the major oil companies working in the area) in the middle of “shopping corridors” – department store complexes. Everything is planned to offer utmost comfort; human beings make themselves comfortable. Nature seems endless to them and has no boundaries . . . an inexhaustible treasure.

Alaska was acquired from Russia by the U.S. in 1867, and is a genuine treasure. There is oil to extract and huge zinc mines south of the Arctic. Fish are numerous and turned into fish sticks in factory boats scouring Bristol Bay: These products will land in our freezers. Gas deposits were discovered. An old pipeline crosses the permafrost. It often leaks, because it’s a relic now, and difficult to repair. In 1989, in these crystal-like waters, a giant oil-tanker, the Exxon Valdez, caused the worst ecological catastrophe ever in the U.S.. Finally, every year, one million tourists come to attend the thawing of the glaciers in the same way an audience goes to attend a show, all the resources of the area slipping by to the U.S.

The “last border” is a colony. Michael Kerry, the star of the local political scientists, says it accurately: “People here have the attitude of gold diggers: I come, I make money, and I leave.”

Alaska is a good example of the questions men are asking themselves today, from the Arctic to Siberia or the rain forest. The questions deal with nature: Who is going to set limits on what we inflict upon it? Are we going to domesticate or eliminate all of the other forms of living species to the benefit of our own, small comforts? Humans have been behaving unwisely for two and a half centuries now, taking overwhelming possession of the biotypes of other animals in the food chain – all this, according to our desires and needs.

This began on a large scale during colonial times in Asia and Africa. As it happened, immigrants to America arrived on such a rich and wonderful mainland that they could think of nothing but the endless means of conquering it. When reaching the land of promise, with the “Good Lord’s” blessing, the only limit is its endlessness. One never considers making a mistake, but only doing everything possible to succeed. This has always been my interpretation of this flavor of disproportion that characterizes the lifestyle of our “cousins”. Nothing ever seems to be adequate or enough for them. They cool their offices and homes excessively during the summer. They use too much heat in winter. Their vehicles are not built according to human scale. The dishes served in restaurants are nothing but mash. Can anyone put aside an obsession with deprivation by stuffing oneself? In any case, the silhouettes of Americans look like Daumier’s engravings or Botero’s paintings. One American out of four is overweight. In the U.S., the lack of harmony between men and nature is striking.

Americans are not the pioneers in their absurd conquest of nature. The slaughter of whales in the Arctic by the English and French in the late 18th century started the carnage. These huge cetaceans became, for our forefathers, a source of energy comparable to our oil today. Thanks to whale and sperm whale blubber, the streets of our capital cities could be lit, and the wool in our spinning mills could be treated. Their bones and baleen were used to make the “ribs” of our umbrellas, nettings and Venetian blinds for our homes, our pens for writing, the springs of our seats. Nine sperm whales out of 10 were eliminated.

Halibut Cove is a bay where whales come to feed on very rich plankton. Victor takes me aboard his small boat; he wants me to admire one of those animals. In a sublime bay, we stop the motor and admire, for a long time in silence, the dark and soft shadow basking in the water. The whale’s skin looks like crumpled paper. “It’s so sensitive,” the sailor tells me, that the animal can wake up with a start if a bird lands on it. Some harpooners told about whales having been tortured with such pain that they dove 1,000 meters to break their spines in the deep sea. Back at the harbor, in a souvenir shop, I find some black and white photos dating back to the late 19th century: some fishermen proudly posing in a group, standing on swollen bellies, holding giant saws in their hands. Their ships are surrounded by garlands of carcasses. On the piers, joyful crowds cheer them.

I’m thinking of the paleontologist, Arthur Jelinek. Most of his colleagues explain the extinction of the great mammals 18,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene, a result of climatological factors. Jelinek and a few others contend that man played a role, that they gave the final blow to the ecosystem of the area. According to him, the first inhabitants of North America, long before Europeans arrived, were very efficient predators. Their potential for disturbance was already great – based upon fact. Closer to us, the white conquerors of America were going to slaughter 45 million – yes, 45 million! – buffalo over a few decades, to deprive the Indians of the meat and to coerce them to live on the reservations to which they were assigned.

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Two years ago, I traveled across the world to narrate how the Chinese conquered the planet and what they’re dreaming of. Their ambition is to live as comfortably as Americans. They consider it their right to do so. They’re a tenacious and courageous people. The assumption that they might reach their goal is realistic. The rule is simple: If 1.3 billion Chinese had the same lifestyle as Americans, the wealth of the earth would need to be multiplied six times. Therefore, we are facing two hypotheses: Either we’re heading towards an ecological catastrophe that will most likely be followed by fights for essential resources, or we’re agreeing to fundamentally rethink our lifestyles.

This is what I want to understand about Alaska: Are Americans capable of setting a good example for the planet by drastically changing their consumption habits?

No need to count on ex-Governor Sarah Palin. She’s “pro-business,” which means that she does nothing to set limits on the industries that consume the region’s resources. So, they reign over Alaska. “Over here, the political world is completely corrupted by the oil industry.” Bill White says: “No small community can fight a massive injection of $40 billion issued by the oil tycoons. Everything has changed here, just because of them. There is no civil servant in charge of the environment in the Far North, and it’s obviously because of politics.”

Charles Wohlforth published a book, titled The Whale and the Supercomputer, in which he explains that the Eskimos, who never managed to be the focus of attention, are well aware of the obvious and alarming climate changes, more than our scientists and their powerful computers. Charles observes: “People in Alaska have the same reactions as all the other Americans. Nobody ever talks about sacrifices. There is an awareness of the danger, but no one wants to change one’s lifestyle. The entire country thinks that it’s a technological matter and that a simply invention will settle this.” It’s also what we imagined about Europe and Japan. We’re hoping for a miracle to get us out of this situation. It’s human enough. Our hope for life doesn’t reach beyond the century; we are unable to anticipate more than one or two generations.

“The great privilege of Americans is to be able to make irreparable mistakes,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 19th century while thinking of this very rich mainland, far beyond the Atlantic. Today, that’s no longer true, because the entire planet in exploited, “according to the American way” – and there is no replacement for our earth.

I made the decision to go to Seattle. I hope, in this more sophisticated America, I will meet some citizens who are more aware. I will not be be disappointed.