This is not an article so much as a topic I'm starting here. As part of an exploration into how to make sustainability something that can work for the average American, let's discuss the following:
Many Americans seem to be in total denial over environmental issues. This is compounded by the fact that certain reactionary elements in our political world actively create false and misleading propaganda to discredit environmentalists.
A few of the more dangerous beliefs out there include:
- There is no oil crisis. There's abundant oil, and it will last forever.
- We can quickly switch from oil to an alternative if needed.
- There is no global warming, or, if there is global warming, it's not man-made.
- All environmental claims are overblown.
- Overpopulation isn't a problem.
- We have a right to maintain our standard of living at all costs.
- We're living in the end-times, so we don't need to worry about the environment.
- God made us masters over the earth (our dominion), so it's our God-given right to take every little bit we can from the earth.
- Environmentalists are all screaming radical liberals.
- Environmentalists are anti-business.
I think, for starters, it is important that we start educating Americans to stop thinking in such black and white terms. This is one of our major problems in America. We can't handle subtlety. Either something is all good or it's all bad. If one environmentalist is wrong in a dire prediction, they must all be wrong. If we don't see the world crumbling around us this very second, that must mean that our environment is A-OK, that global warming is a myth, that oil will always be there, that we can handle our population growth.
Maybe there's a middle ground. Maybe we'll be able to find a way to make oil last longer, but maybe part of the solution will be to conserve in the meantime. Maybe global warming won't mean the end of the world, but maybe we should still work towards cleaner air and water.
I say, we need to find a balance in our thinking first, before we will be able to find a balance in our way of living.
What do you think?
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Comments: 15
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Sometimes I think people get overwhelmed with all there is to think about when it comes to the environment. If we break it up into manageable chunks and approach people in a helping manner instead of a judging manner (the difference between "I discovered this easy way to help the environment" and "I can't believe you do that - it's so bad for the environment!), it often makes a big difference.
http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/
After a quick glance it will appear to be a anti-global warming book (as some of the critics have said). I believe it is a wake-up call for the methodology to get the most people involved. Too many non-profits are just in the business to fund-raise. That is why I don't believe many of them.. they are looking to 'scare' the dollars out of my wallet. IMHO
Great post Stephanie... thank you for sharing!
No? we might lose some flights? Have to take a 'Shudder' long distance train?
there wheels within wheels here folks and the only sure and certain truth is that our grandkids and great grandkids will live in a world with declining resources available to them.. that means that the 'trust-fund kids' will get along and the blue collar kids will be herded onto some sort of cattle car and taken to work the fields.
and all your two or three sheets of paper and walking a mile instead of driving won't mean a thing, sadly..
L.
1. Help people to fall in love with nature. Introduce them to nature that fits their inclinations. For some, this might be fishing or hunting. For others, it might be bicycling or hiking in natural areas. Others might like photography or the beauty and spirituality of nature. Help them learn one or more marvelous fact(s) of nature related to their interest that show the wisdom of nature. Once they have a stake, a place in nature to which they are connected, they become an advocate for it. I find hunting repulsive and don't care for fishing, but hunters and anglers have contributed to conservation. And I, who likes more pristine natural areas, can join forces with them to conserve open spaces. I think an underlying aspect of the popularity of activities like hunting, fishing, off-road vehicle riding, and boating is that they are connected to nature, albeit at times destructive of nature.
2. Develop the economic costs/benefits and some understandable indicators related to sustainability and nature. Disseminate this information in varied formats and degrees of difficulty for diverse audiences. People respond to money talk.
3. Work for and encourage solutions that enhance people's lives, not seemingly diminish them. Too many fixes seem to take away something important or won't work for busy people. We have the creativity to find solutions that improve life for people as well as the environment.
4. Encourage long-term thinking and planning. Long-term planning is difficult for publicly owned businesses because their stockholders demand short-term results. Perhaps invest in socially responsible companies.
5. Encourage women's rights and advancement in undeveloped countries. Enhancing women's status has been crucial in forming stable governments.
6. Encourage a vibrant civil society of NGOs and other organizations and participate in some way.
7. Encourage reading of "Collapse: How a Society Chooses to Succeed or Fail," by Jared Diamond.
8. Encourage and develop multilateral action. Migrating birds that nest and breed in the North must have their shelter and food needs met in the South where they winter, along the flyways through which they migrate and stop to rest and refuel, and the place where they nest breed. A bird may winter in Argentina, migrate along the Mississippi River flyway, and nest and breed in the northern U.S. and southern Canada. To ensure species survival, the governments and peoples of all the places the bird traverses must conserve habitat for that bird.
I do believe that the last myth, "Environmentalists are anti-business", is at the heart of much of the anti-environmentalists thinking. If that myth could be debunked, I believe that many more Americans would start taking environmental issues seriously.
Anti-business???
Please - we are talking major paradigm shift here that will provide a huge opportunity for the entire planet. Imagine, people getting more and better jobs to repair environment wasting actions of the past, so we can survive?
Anti-business examples:
Automobile manufacturers were
anti-business to buggy whip factories
Personal computers were
anti-business to typewriter manufacturers
Edison's lamp was
anti-business to candle makers...
Little fuzzy rodents were
anti-business to surviving dinosaurs...
I submit that a big part of ECO-DENIAL is a human factors problem, where individuals raised to buy into to our consumer culture (me = just as guilty...) can not yet see what we do today and have done to the planet since post WW-II especially, can be reversed only by rethinking the entire economic system towards efficiency and renewable resources.
Interestingly, using natural capitalism concepts (Hawkin, Lovins et.al) relies on innovative re-imagined forms of valuing the environment on a level playing field with monetary investment in "doing a thing."
Central planning (nie. Soviet style) models are hopeless in valuing the environment by the way, so we can't rely on that model. Good examples; nuclear wastelands in Ukraine, inefficient decaying housing in urban cores, and "glowing" Russian sub-marine bases.
While governments world wide wring their hands, individuals need to get going in spite of the largess of corporations, banks, trade groups, lobbyists, and other reality deniers. Delay and BS is the real anti-business since it ties down resources via fear and obfuscation.
A growing consensus of scientific realists and decision makers, largely outside the US, Canada, Australian sphere predict we have about 10 years before uncorrectable damage will have been done to the planet, particularly in climate change due to excessive emissions from energy waste.
Let's not sit around fiddling...
However, I've found the comments on this subject very interesting and am glad you brought it up. I recently watched Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and saw that Gore thought a lot about how to motivate people and asked the same question you do here.
My comment concerns the myth of oil abundance. I'd encourage everyone to think about fossil fuels as a "trust fund" given to us by our ancestors which we must in turn pass on to our heirs.
The question shouldn't be whether the fund will run out in 2 years, 20 years, or 200 years. The question is what can we do now to lessen how much we withdraw so that we leave the generations who follow with as much wealth and opportunity as possible.
Conservation is a key component to any view of a livable future.
I think the moves by several major church organizations to identify us as stewards, not masters of the land will resonate with religious objectors. I have worked with several programs that encourage faith-based stewardship that are very well particpated in.