One of the things that strikes me about Michael Maniates' op-ed piece is his faith in the American people to act. The underlying assumption of his piece, which argues that Americans are willing to do more to save the environment they just don't know what to do, is that the fault lies with "environmental elites and political leaders" who ask too little of those they lead.
I would argue that the willingness of most Americans to save the environment peaks with asking the question of "What can I do?" So many of us know the easy answers of recycling, using compact fluorescent light bulbs, taking shorter showers, and fail to do even that. How can Maniates expect anyone to ask for more?
I wish the world were as Maniates suggests - full of people sitting on their hands, anxiously awaiting the next instruction on how to save the world. But the reality is the world is more like a preschool classroom, where everyone stopped paying attention as soon as the directions started.
I am sure there are people who have taken these first steps and have not gone further, but I don't think this is because they don't know what to do. Rather, I think these people have taken the steps they are willing to take, and have decided that their ability to save the environment ends there. Most people know exactly what the next step they can take to save the environment is, they are just unwilling to take it.
According to the article, Maniates states that "We should look for easy, cost-effective things to do in our private lives as consumers, since that's where we have the most power and control" in order to save the planet, and most of us know the easy things to do (As Hannah also said). But I think that even if we did easy, cost-effective things in our prive lives, this does not help at all because the amount that we consume is drastically higher than what we do for the environment. So, I think that we should keep doing the "easy things to do to save the planet," but also at the same time, we should minimize our consumption.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, when we try to minimize consumption, economy would gradually deactivate. It's not a good news especially for developing countries. I think it is a very tough decision to make in this situation because every country wants to develop, but they need to sacrifice the environment. If they make a decision to save the planet, they have to sacrifice themselves.
What do you guys think about the balance between develpment(economy) and environment?
I agree with both of these arguments. First of all, I came to the same conclusion that Hannah did in regards to the willingness of the American public. I do not think that the issue is lack of education, but rather, a lack of drive by the people to follow through. The prevalence of environmental awareness and education in our society is extensive and continually increasing. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that a majority of the American public cannot understand the proper steps – consequently, I must assume that they simply are not willing to sacrifice their comfortable norms to make those steps.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, I think that Yumiko brings up an interesting point. There is a drastic difference between the making a few simple changes to our daily routines to help the environment and truly reassessing our societal norms in light of a more environmentally-friendly world. Maybe in America and Europe, the lands of plenty, people can be convinced to cut back on their indulgent consumerism. The fall of the American SUV is a perfect example – more people can be convinced to buy smaller cars, despite the general need to obtain the supposed status symbol of an enormous Cadillac Escalade or Hummer. However, it is completely unrealistic to assume that the populations of developing countries, specifically the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), will halt their exponential growth for environmental reasons. In their minds, they have been waiting for decades to reach the industrial revolutions that they are having at present and will not halt them for an environmental cause that is touted by the countries that they are trying to surpass.
So, in answer to Yumiko’s question, I think that the line between development and environment is very thin and blurry. Quite frankly, I am unsure that they can coexist; in many ways, a country must choose to pursue one or the other as the end goal. And unfortunately, the majority of the countries in the world (poorer developing countries) will not want to halt progress for environmental protection. I think that it will ultimately result in the creation of an even deeper rift between the developed and developing countries of the world, and that the conflict will not be resolved any time in the near future – which doesn’t bode well for the environment’s health.