The cover of the Winter 1996-97 Earth Island Journal asks "Can Internet Save The World?" This immediately grabbed my attention because I've been becoming struck with what seems to me to be a new form of addiction - i..e., e-mailing and "surfing the net". The number of e-mail messages the MEC receives and the number of web sites on the Internet have been steadily increasing to the point that rather than finding this a useful means of information sharing, I find it overwhelming, and actually a hindrance to doing the work we need to be doing. Gary (Ball) does our e-mail and Internet work, and it is taking him 3 - 5 hours a week just to check the messages in our e-mail. This doesn't include reading the messages - just scanning to see what's there. Were he to read or print all the e-mail we receive in a week, it would average 700 - 1000 pages, at this point, and it is still increasing! And, it's not just the MEC. Activists I've spoken with from other organizations say they get much more than the MEC does, and some are even having to hire interns just to deal with e-mail and Internet. Now, I ask you, who has time to read 700 - 1000 pages of e-mail in addition to the work we're all already doing?
True, there are valuable pieces of information, but a lot of our e-mail is repetitious of info we already have, or irrelevant to us. Some of the e-mail messages are incredibly long-winded, and I wonder how the people who send those messages manage to spend so much tme in front of their computers? And, is doing so really the most effective use of their time?
How much of the info in e-mail or on Internet reaches the uninformed and/or the unconverted? Isn't a lot of this like "preaching to the choir"?
Sure, there's value in being able to rapidly and massively disseminate crucial info and alerts, but the magnitude of what's going on across the wires borders on the ridiculous, and constitutes what I consider to be an abuse of discretion that happens because it's fun, it's convenient and a whole lot easier than face to face organizing!!
It appears to me that the problem in the environmental movement - or social justice movement, or any other aspect of the movement, is not so much lack of information, but failure to act on the information we have.
E-mailing and surfing the net do not help us build coalitions with workers, welfare recipients, people of color, etc. Rather, sitting in front of a computer for endless hours contributes to isolation and dis-connectedness - our own and that of others. It is not a substitute for phone calls, face to face organizing and direct action at the point of production. (And, are 1000s of e-mails to elected officials really as effective as personal phone calls, letters, and visits to our representative's offices?)
We need more personal contact - the opportunity to know one another, not just random, impersonal computer messages. Organizing through personal contacts is ultimately the only way we can build trust, dispel fear, find common ground and advance toward environmental and social justice.
Yes, there are distinct advantages to putting out calls to action and information updates via e-mail and/or Web Sites, but there are certainly pitfalls, because it's a seductive "tool" and easily lends itself to "substance abuse" as can other tools, such as copiers and fax machines, as well. For instance, the MEC's expense for copies decreased significantly when we got rid of our copier and had to go out to make copies, because we started thinking twice about whether we really needed that copy. And amidst much protestation, I resisted getting a fax machine for the MEC for a very long time, seeing its potential for abuse - and I was right. I'm sure we too often fax when we could mail - and fax documents that are superfluous, if not down right unnecessary - just because it's there, convenient, and fun. One look at the MEC and you see we suffer from information overload rather than information deprivation. I'm sure that is true of many of you, too.
Another very important factor to remember about e-mail and Internet was pointed out in the Summer 1996 issue of Earth Island Journal: There are approximately 30 - 35 million computers in use in U.S. homes and businesses. The use of these computers is responsible for 60 watts of electricity per hour - or 5% of all U.S. energy use. It is also the fastest growing sector of commercial electrical demand. Computer-consumed elecricity currently generates an estimated 50 million tons of carbon dioxide a year - which is the amount that would be produced by driving 8 million cars.
In the Summer 1997 edition of Earth Island Journal, an article by Jerry Mander, excerpted from The Case Against the Global Economy, the book he co-edited with Edward Goldsmith, reminds us that if we think "computers have eliminated the old political center and replaced it with a new net-based web politics that brings us an enhanced democracy run through cyberspace, someone forgot to tell the transnational corporations. ....Today's giant financial institutions could not exist without computers. Computers are their global nervous systems - keeping them synchronized and moving in the same direction for central purposes."
Mander goes on to say: "While we sit at our PCs editing our copy, sending our e-mail and expressing our 'cyberfreedoms', the transnational corporations are using their global networks (fed by far greater resources) to achieve concrete results expressed in downed forests, massive infrastructional development, destruction of rural and farming societies, displacement of millions of people and domination of governments.
"...Computers speed up communications exchanges over long distances - a quality that is most advantageous to large, centralized institutions."
Yes, computers can be powerful tools for rapid, efficient information exchange, and can be used - on a limited basis - for constructive organizing purposes. But computers were created by the mega powers who use them to their advantage to continue their rapid destruction of the Earth and many cultures. They control how and to what extent the powerless can use them. So, please don't be deceived into thinking we are now gaining our ultimate empowerment. And don't be seduced by your computer's ease, convenience and "fun" nature. Realize that computers are just tools with limited value for organizing and the real work that must be done.
In the words of the late Alan Watts: "Once you get [or give] the message, hang up the phone." And, I would add - Act On The Message!
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited