Love in the Time of Climate Change (22 page)

The bong and pot were in plain view. The house reeked of marijuana.

“Just pretend we're not here!”

My pleas fell on deaf ears. Jesse, a satanic grin lighting up his face, had already succumbed to the inner evil possessing him. Clearly intent on torturing me, he graciously let the two in.

They fit to a T the stereotype of Bible-toting, evangelical, out-to-save-our-desperate-souls door-to-doorers. Men's-underwear-commercial good-looking, with close-cropped hair and athletic builds. Dressed impeccably, as if for a final job interview, smiles wider than the Hetch Hetchy Valley.

Jesse welcomed them to the living room, where I lay immobile, frozen on the couch, Queen still blasting, pot smoke still drifting leisurely overhead.

Jesse wasted no time in getting to work.

“I'm so glad you're here,” he said, turning off the music, shaking their hands, and offering them something to drink. “I'm concerned about my good friend Casey.” He motioned toward me.

I shot him my evilest eye, bloodshot as it was, but he ignored me.

“He's fallen under the spiritual deception of thinking humans can change the climate. Humans! I mean, how absurd is that?”

The evangelicals glanced at each other anxiously.

“You and I know that environmentalism is just another secular ruse to ignore the real moral issues of our times. He's trying to save the planet. We had someone come here 2,000 years ago to do just that, Casey—and He doesn't need your help!”

Jesse was up and pacing. He had wildness in his eyes.

“God promised Noah after the flood that nothing like that would ever happen again. Humans destroying the planet—blasphemy! The earth will only end when God
declares it to be over. When Jesus returns to usher in salvation. Help me to help him see the light!”

Our two guests were speechless. They anxiously gripped their Bibles and remained glued to the couch.

Like a flash it dawned on me—I was being pranked! These dudes weren't evangelicals. Jesse was just messing with my head! He had a long and twisted history of unleashing practical jokes at my expense. And this, clearly, was just another one of them.

Once, when we were camping, I went to take care of business in the outhouse. It was a dilapidated, ancient, run-down crapper. Unbeknownst to me, he had crept behind and somehow inserted a curved branch through a crack in the back. Just as I was about to let fly, I felt this scraping motion on my ass. It literally scared the shit back into me.

Another time we were at a party and he told me to be extra sensitive to the host because she had recently lost her big toe in a chain saw accident. How I fell for that one I'll never know, but I imagine pot had something to do with it. Sitting by her side, I had just finished the last gulp of my drink when, looking down, I noticed a toe staring up at me from the bottom of my mug. It was, of course, a gag mug with a fake toe. But before any sort of rational thoughts could surface in my addled brain, I screamed, the intensity of which made her spill her drink all over my crotch.

Needless to say, I was the hit of the party.

The ruse this time was obvious. I was once again to be the butt of another perverted, obscenely warped gag of his.

I leapt from the couch.

“He speaks the truth!” I cried. “I blaspheme God! I embrace Satan. I have impure thoughts about an incredibly hot student in my class. I obsessively masturbate and smoke way too much weed. But now, thanks to you, I see the light! God gave us carbon dioxide, so it must be a good
thing! God left the remains of those ancient plants and animals as a present for us to dig up and burn-baby-burn. If God wants the earth to warm, then warm away, dear planet!”

I knelt down before the startled two.

“I know now the error of my ways,” I yelled, kissing one of their hands. “I am born again! Praise be to Jesus!”

I jumped back onto the couch, pumped my arms in the air, and let out a rapturous “Hallelujah!”

Then I burst out laughing.

“God, you guys are good!” I said, lightly punching one of them on the arm. “You friends of Jesse's from work?”

There followed a very long, incredibly awkward silence. I noticed Jesse was nowhere to be seen. Disappeared like a mountaintop. Gone.

“Maybe we should go,” the taller one said, standing up and inching toward the door. “Thanks for your time.”

“Whoa,” I sat back down on the couch. “Wait a minute. You mean, you guys are, like, for real?” I stammered.

“Yeah,” the shorter one replied. “We get the message.”

“Oh God, I mean, oh gee.” I was red-faced and totally flustered. “I am so sorry. I meant no disrespect. Honest to God, I mean, honestly, I thought this was a joke. You know my roommate, he …”

The taller one let out another painful sigh. “That's okay. Thanks for the water.”

As they walked down the steps, the shorter one turned to me.

“By the way,” he said, sorrow in his eyes. “Our faith tells us that when God granted humans dominion over the earth, it was not to be taken lightly. My church is working hard on these issues and I see climate change as a huge threat. It scares the hell out of me.”

I felt the knife blade deep in the heart, twisting and turning.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Me too.”

I shut the door and watched them walk away, talking softly to themselves, taking anxious glances back at me.

Thou shalt not kill? Bullshit!

When I found out where Jesse was hiding, I fumed to myself, his ass was as good as dead!

Indoor-Grown Marijuana Factoid: “According to a 2011 report, indoor marijuana growing may account for 1 percent of the entire country's electricity consumption. Specific energy uses include high-intensity lighting, dehumidification to remove water vapor, space heating during non-illuminated periods and drying, irrigation water preheating, generation of CO
₂
by burning fossil fuel, and ventilation and air-conditioning to remove waste heat. Substantial energy inefficiencies arise from air cleaning, noise and odor suppression, and inefficient electric generators used to avoid conspicuous utility bills.… More growing could be conducted outdoors, thus reducing its footprint.”

—Huffington Post, August 27, 2012

O
NE OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS
about being the advisor to a school club is that you get to see students in a totally different light than in the classroom setting. With all the messy weirdness of grades and grading out of the
picture, interpersonal dynamics shift to a much more egalitarian relationship.

I loved being the advisor to the Climate Changers. I got to know students not just as students but as people and as activists. In a world so fraught with cynicism, materialism, narcissism, and despair, it was wonderfully uplifting to be in constant interaction with late-teens and twenty-somethings out to save the world.

It was what gave me hope and fed my optimism.

My role in the group was that of advisor. It was their club, their agenda. I served as a reality check as well as a resource in navigating the sometimes cumbersome bureaucracy of the institution.

Maintaining my integrity and professionalism while juggling these unique relationships with club members was always interesting, but not always easy.

“Do you smoke weed, Mister C?” Trevor asked at the Wednesday group meeting. Side conversations stopped as the rest of the group eagerly anticipated my answer.

It was not a question out of the blue.

With the overwhelming passage of the medical marijuana initiative on the November ballot, Massachusetts was positioned to be one of eighteen states in the country, plus Washington, D.C., to legalize marijuana for medical use with a doctor's prescription. I had walked in on a discussion concerning whether the college, through its Department of Community Education, should offer a series of workshops on growing techniques. These would be credit-free and open to folks in the community interested in entering the marijuana business legally.

The right answer to the “do I smoke pot” question proved to be elusive. I prided myself on my openness and honesty within the group, and they reciprocated in kind. I was continually impressed with the strict observance of one of our major club ground rules: personal issues brought up in the group stayed in the group.

A simple “no” would have made me look the fool. I played the part of the left-wing, authority-be-damned activist professor quite well. That was the niche I proudly filled on campus, and I relished it.

I was always the first to trash excessive alcohol use when it came up in personal discussions. I gave my tobacco smokers, thankfully few and far between, continual shit along with serious urgings to seek out campus resources to help with their addiction. But my conspicuous silence during previous pot discussions had clearly not fallen on deaf ears. I got the feeling that they knew me too well for a no.

An “I have” was a difficult sell in my case. Been there, done that, I used to be young and a pothead, blah, blah, blah was probably not going to fly.

For reasons I couldn't quite explain, a simple “yes” seemed like simply TMI, too much information.

“I'm not sure what this discussion has to do with climate change,” I answered. While honesty was generally the best policy, evasiveness seemed appropriate at this moment.

“See? I told you he did!” Trevor turned triumphantly to the group.

“I didn't know that OCD was a diagnosis for medical marijuana,” Hannah offered.

My raucous laughter sealed the deal.

“Once again, someone clue me in as to why this discussion is relevant to the mission of this group?” I said awkwardly attempting to change the focus.

Surprise, surprise—Hannah and Trevor had been going at it. The tangling twosome had locked horns over the pot issue, with Trevor advocating for our school's direct involvement and Hannah expressing caution.

“PVCC could be a trendsetter, way out ahead of the game on this issue,” Trevor explained.

“You can't be serious!” Hannah said. “People think
we're on the fringe enough already. This will not exactly enhance our credibility.”

“Says you of the 350 purple caps.”

“Shut up.”

“Look. No one is saying we grow it. I'm saying the school should teach people how to grow it. It's a huge difference. You gotta know best practices for growing weed. Very sick people are going to be depending on high-quality stuff. What better place to learn than a community college?”

“I think you've had a little too much of that stuff, high-quality or not,” Hannah replied.

“Dude, it's not like you don't smoke weed,” Trevor retorted.

“Not as much as you.”

“Folks,” I chimed in. “Let's keep this productive.”

I was, however, intrigued to know that Hannah smoked pot. Aside from climate-change activism, she seemed so … straight. I had a hard time imagining her tolerating marijuana use, let alone firing up a doobie. And anyway, how did Trevor know all this about her? Hmm …

“Anyway,” Trevor continued. “We have an ideal setting. A great greenhouse, the perfect teaching venue.”

“God, you are such a hypocrite!” Hannah lashed out. “If we're going to do this then we should do it right. Indoor grows are an incredible energy suck. They use like ten or twenty 1,000-watt grow lamps, 23/7. Crazy climate-change-inducing whack jobs!”

“I'm a hypocrite? Dude, you're not exactly a pot snob. Last time you bought it would have been from anyone. You were totally desperate. You told me so yourself. If the bag had been labeled ‘this pot powered exclusively by big coal' you would have still inhaled on the spot.”

What? Was he serious? I looked at Hannah with new eyes. Here she was, sitting in her vintage 1950s, Catholic high school girl's outfit waxing eloquently about indoor
grows and taking shit from Trevor about her personal pot-purchasing policy. Who knew?

Once again, no judging books by their covers.

“And what, you
are
a pot snob?” Hannah shot back angrily. “That kid you buy from in economics class looks like a Mafia wannabe.”

To intervene or not to intervene. I was often in a quandary when the heat got turned up.

“All I'm saying,” she continued, “is that we need to think about the carbon footprint of everything we do. Agriculture has a huge impact. We can't address climate change without looking at how we grow things. So if we're going to go out on a limb and advocate something as out-there as this—and I'm not saying we should—it seems to me we should take the high ground, pun intended. Outdoor growing has much less of an environmental impact than an indoor grow. I mean, we teach sustainable gardening, right? If we're going to do this, why not teach sustainable marijuana growing? It makes perfect sense. We could set the standard for growing grass in as ecologically conscious way as possible.”

I was beginning to like this girl more and more.