The Climate Change in Me (4)
- By Giacomo Sartori

In me also exists—as within any other citizen of a country where capitalism is unchallenged—a consumer self. This self for years now buys almost exclusively organic food, not only because he is careful not to poison himself any more that he has to, but also because he believes this is one way to stand up for the environment. He thinks that organic farming doesn’t plague and decimate farmlands and countrysides the way conventional farming does, and that, if it has now become a major force in both the countries where he lives, it’s also thanks to him, or at least to people like him, who for years have bought organic produce, even if it costs more. And if there is a way to combat climate change, or at least not make it worse, this is it. Since he’s no activist, and even has an unpleasant tendency towards bodily pleasures and Oblomovism, he’s somewhat proud of this accomplishment; he feels part of a just and true struggle, side by side with others, no matter what the militant self has to say about it (and that one is hypercritical about everything anyway).
This placid, surreptiously pleasure-loving self would also very much like to be vegetarian, given what he’s learned from the soil scientist self about how, on its own, meat production gobbles up the greatest part of agricultural produce on the planet, producing more greenhouse-effect gases than automobiles and airplanes combined. He would like to quit eating meat, but he’s nowhere steadfast or coherent enough with himself, plus he’s greedy. So from time to time he does eat meat, though he generally does limit himself to poultry, which is considered the least harmful. To quiet down his scrupulous conscience, he comes up with pretexts; reminds himself that the bloodwork I had done two years ago showed a very low level of vitamin B12, and that I have a tendency to be anemic. He tells himself, and tells me, that a person in my condition has to be very careful, that I need cover my ass, that anyone with any common sense at all would understand. I know full well that his arguments are baseless, because if I’m very attentive and measured in my diet, there’s not even a minimal chance of problems with B12 or anemia, yet I do nonetheless give in from time to time, seduced by certain aromas or irresistable recipes. And when I get invited somewhere, or in a restaurant, I keep my scruples to myself, and I even eat red meat, which requires more agricultural produce and the greatest amount of water. To sum it up, this gluttonous consumer self is not a self to be trusted; one day he believes one thing and the next day another, if we judge him by his actions.
Perhaps precisely in order to demonstrate to others and himself that he cares about environmental and climate issues, and that he’s not as much of a weathervane as one might think, of his own accord he often insists on small details that make little sense. Until just a few years ago no auto had air conditioning, he says, whereas today it seems that people will immediately croak if they travel even two kilometers in a non-refrigerated cabin, and this is true even in the Alpine regions and the north of Europe. In other words, he wanted us to buy a car without air conditioning (and I should add that, for once, all the other selves agreed, given that by doing so we would save 600 euros, and at the time we weren’t exactly flush). Just a week ago my traveling partner couldn’t quit pointing out to me, her words dripping with annoyed sarcasm, that we were the only vehicle on the entire highway with our windows down. I defended my capricious ecological self, despite the fact that the blazing heat, another effect of novel excesses in the climate—was truly remarkable. We ended up in an argument. But even in hotel rooms we have similar problems: she tells me that, if we don’t turn on the air conditioning, she’ll fall ill; after all, that’s why they have air conditioning, so you can turn it on. Because she too suffers from low blood pressure.
It needs to said that this self, intransigent as he is about core samples and air conditioning, is nowhere near as rigorous as he’d like to appear, because, for example, he has nothing against me flying for the frequent trips I make between the two countries I live in. Well, actually, he has been grumbling a bit recently, and deep down he is probably ashamed, but he doesn’t exactly exercise a veto, and he does come along on the plane with me. So I should no doubt specify that this obliging soul, who, left to his own initiative, would preach nonstop about morality to the entire world, actually adores the smell of kerosene you get while a plane is taxiing on the runway, as it sends energy to the motors and kicks out frightening amounts of smoke, full of greenhouse gases and other filth. At such a moment he forgets all of his harangues and only thinks about the joy of being on a runway about to take off, waiting to feel the acceleration that will bring on flight, as if he were still a little boy. In these cases I can’t help but feel sorry for him, my anticonsumerist self, that scourge of all squanderers.
This same self, my paladin of propriety, opposes me whenever I want to buy new clothes, he scorns looking at window displays in stores, but then on occasion he will run out and buy himself a new pair of designer shoes. And above all he believes that the numerous nuclear power plants in one of the two countries where he lives are an enormous danger, an environmental aberration, and he doesn’t believe that the wind turbines and solar panels will work like a magic wand. He believes that the correct path is for all of us to work together to consume less energy. During winter, though, he does raise the thermostat in my study, because he hates being cold. He uses as his excuse the fact that our life is already too difficult, that all we need is to come down with something; we have the right to heat our place properly. He’s perfectly aware that behind the electrical outlet, where the heater next to my desk is plugged in, well hidden behind those two little holes, there lies in reality one of those offensive nuclear power plants, and he’s well aware that keeping the temperature lower would save electricity. But in that instant he aligns himself with the marginal writer and the scientific contrarian, inciting both of them and calling on their shared precarious existence, with the argument that their unrecognized greatness should earn them an exception to the rule. And they fall for it, vainglorious as they are, and they force me to give in too, bewildered at this level of biodiversity inside of me, at this degree of climatic change within my own Neanderthal brain.
Translated by Jim Hicks
Giacomo Sartori is a novelist, poet, dramatist, and agronomist. His most recent novel in English, Bug (Restless Books, 2020), was translated by Frederika Randall. His novel I Am God (Restless Books, 2019), also translated by Randall, won the 2020 Italian Prose in Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association.