“If frogs are placed in room temperature water that is slowly brought to a boil, they will stay there until they die. The slight increments don’t bother them much. However, if frogs are placed in boiling water they will try to jump out with all their might.” —famous experiment or urban legend?
One of nature’s most sensitive creatures allowing itself to be gradually boiled to death. It captures the imagination. And rings familiar, as a not-exactly-sustainable modern lifestyle is turning up the heat on a world of frog-like citizens. In America, when pollution, poverty or other fallout of our economy becomes apparent, we usually roll up our sleeves and…get used to it. We adjust psychologically to the disease instead of “adapting” by fixing the problem at the core.
Unclean water? Buy a Brita. Asthma in Fresno from all the factory farming? Get the kids inhalers. Vanishing ozone layer? Apply sunscreen. Mercury in the tuna? We’ll eat less of it. That’s frog mentality. And the latest on frogs is that, according to The Washington Post, “…rising temperatures are pushing dozens of frog species over the brink of extinction.” Terrorism is one thing that seems not in danger of extinction any time soon. One fine day in our “endless war,” bombs will go off and we’ll shrug. It’s adapting, but it’s not solving the problem.
Right now mainstream society puts more value on our “freedom” to make money, drive Hummers, crank air conditioners to freezing and eat apples from New Zealand in February than our right not to have melanoma, asthma, killer heat waves, killer hurricanes. But here’s the thing: According to Whit Gibbons, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, the frog experiment is pure urban legend. A frog will jump out of incrementally heated water as long as it’s afforded the opportunity to do so. So the question should not be if we’re like frogs, but if we are worse.
When I was a kid in suburbia, frogs lulled me to sleep from the meadow across the street. Now that meadow, long ago bulldozed, is nothing but more houses with manicured lawns.
If we “adjust” the definition of the American Dream, limit the powers of corporate America, reclaim our democracy so it serves citizens instead of moneyed interests, then we won’t have to get used to life without amphibians that apparently feel the heat but have nowhere left to hop for relief.
Since the 1970s, Common Ground has been helping to identify and celebrate the values and actions that can return us to sustainability and sanity. We offer positive news on genuine, non-corporate culture, wellness, politics, philosophy and environmentalism. And as Common Ground’s new editor, I’m pleased to move that editorial mission forward.
In the ‘70s, environmentalism was about respect for nature. Today, it’s nothing less than a matter of survival—for frogs and humans alike. It’s not easy being green, as Kermit sang. But it’s no longer a choice, is it?
—Todd Spencer