For Every Action there is an Equal and Opposite Reaction

By Jenna Martuscello

Human responses to the environment may stem out of their early experiences with nature, but also grow out of their reactions to how their environment changes around them. The materials covered this week showed us the ways in which people have reacted to the environment and the ways in which we have harmed it. While many may people may not originally believe that environmental issues are important to them, when they recognize how hurting the earth hurts it’s people, they are able to rally behind the cause.

In the film A Fierce Green Fire, the true roots of grassroots activism are shown as people recognize their need to take action in order to preserve their ways of living. Through original news and documentary footage of the event, the viewers are able to see the destruction of their community as they had experienced. The people of Love Canal could have been seen to exemplify the American working class suburban neighborhood of the late 20^th century. After chemical waste dumping in their area by a near-by factory began to affect them, they decided to take action. The plant which dumped the chemicals in Love Canal was one where people of the community had worked. Before they discovered how badly they were being affected by the chemicals and waste products, many though of the employer as a part of the community. As many female workers later came to realize, it was their work at the factory and later their proximity to the dumped chemicals that made them and their children so sick.

The families of Love Canal were able to see chemical run off come in through their basement foundations as well as their front lawns. The footage that shows the colorful contamination in real-time allows the viewer to engage in the same shock and outrage. When multiple women discovered their frequency of miscarriages as well as the birth defects that were showing up in their children, they knew it was the chemicals at fault. As they pushed for further investigations and relocation of their families, the government and chemical companies resisted. Love Canal was only able to become an environmental movement because the people had no choice but to react. While they worked and fought for justice, it only came once they threatened those in power. 

Similarly, the rubber plant workers of the Amazon in Brazil originally had no significant ties or commitments to keeping the environment safe, until they recognized the impact that deforestation would have on their personal community. Many people come to their environmental belief not through learned actions, but necessary reactions. They saw that they would lose not only their jobs and way of life, but also their homes and land. Both stories within A Fierce Green Fire engage the viewers by relating the stories and controversies to that of the “common man”. People are willing to engage deeply with the stories of both the people of the Amazon and Love Canal because they feel as though they can relate to their struggles. The amount of powerlessness that we witness those people going through is one that most people not only have experienced but live in fear of.

A Fierce Green Fire and the film in class on Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring highlight how our government, private corporations, and banks will simply continue to devastate the world unless more people begin to react. The images in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring were not only shocking, but horrifyingly ironic; DDT companies spraying down people almost directly in their faces with deadly insecticides in order to prove their point that it was safe. As tons of fish and birds died around them, the government and pesticide companies continued to deny how dangerous the use of these insecticides were, all because they wanted the profit. In return, they would say that Rachel Carson’s claims were not true and “hysterical,” a line they later tried to use with the women of Love Canal.

While Thoreau and Bill McKibben often subscribe to the idea of removing oneself from these denatured situations and trying to find their homes in the forest, these are not ideals attainable by the majority of our population. While someone like McKibben may have the money or resources to build himself a home away from society, many of the people shown in A Fierce Green Fire did not even own land or have the possibility to leave. McKibben, Wendell, and Thoreau all held degrees from highly regarded Ivy League schools and were able to attain a more affluent lifestyle. Before retreating to his forest home, McKibben worked for years as a New York Times column writer. While great nature writers, appreciators, and advocates, these men did not suffer or hurt in the same way that someone from Love Canal had. The relationships with nature that subjects in A Fierce Green Fire had did not come out of the appreciation for how a hawk flaps its wings, but from the necessity of our planet to be actually livable by communities of people.

As shown in Chapter Three of “Communicating Nature”, the idea of environmentalism being a white elite issue is no longer the case. Most Americans acknowledge and support the idea of stopping pollution and the overuse of CO2 production, not as many as 20 years ago maybe, but still a large amount. As easy as Corbett’s text is to read though, this chapter is bogged down with statistics which makes it less fun to read. While trying to convey that the environment is a problem for everyone, it seemed very much like things I had heard before. This point was put across much better in A Fierce Green Fire when interviewee Robert Bullard says that the air we breathe is not only for whites, or blacks, or Latinos; our planet’s water and air are used and shared by everyone. The actions and reactions we have and take towards ending our corruption of the earth’s resources is a job for all people. We must make sure that we don’t allow environmental responsibility or justice to lie with those in charge, as they are not always looking to help those at the bottom.

The article I found is by BBC reporter Dave Shuckmen called “Will the falling oil price undermine green energy?”. Schuckmen’s question throughout the piece is whether the current falling oil prices will make people less inclined to rally behind the need for alternative energy sources. This piece is important and relevant as it shows how we react when we believe the earth is or is not in crisis. While many of us may ignore the need for alternatives because we are happy with our cheaper oil, it does not excuse the fact that oil is an exhaustible resource and one that is very much involved with the damaging of our planet. While his writing is fact and statistic heavy, it is easier to read and digest as he breaks things into smaller paragraphs. Because this article is from a very large news conglomerate, ease of access to the type of writing is critically important. Shuckman is more able to have readers understand him as they are not turned away by heavy research. Articles like this allow those who may not have much knowledge on CO2 emissions and the energy crisis a better and somewhat comprehensive understanding. 

As mentioned in A Fierce Green Fire, President Reagan removed the White House’s solar panels once oil prices dropped. Cheapening oil prices may allow consumers to ignore problems with how our oil is obtained, where it comes from, and whether we should be using it at all. Once it begins to rise in price again, we will have to wait and see how the general populace reacts to the truth behind their ignorance.