By Chad Marvin
“Climate change” is a phrase that can often sound much bigger than any one person, or even country. This fact, not the damage it has done to our environment is what makes it such a daunting problem to face. Like a never-ending international game of ‘hot-potato,’ nations have thrown climate change around trying to avoid the impending perils it threatens to impose upon the anthropocentric lifestyle we are currently living around the world. Although it might seem easy to blame this issue on Obama or Putin, or Jinping, or the European Union, they like the rest of the other seven billion people on this earth are just people. How can these people just be expected to fix such a gigantic problem on this planet, when the other six something billion of us stand idly by making no efforts to stop climate change?
All people have the ability to make an impact, so why wait for someone to tell us to as if we are all just mindless drones. “Confronting climate change requires swearing off something that has been an extraordinary boon to humankind: cheap fossil fuels.” As said by Charles C. Mann in “How to Talk About Climate Change so People Will Listen.” We, the people around the world can place blame all we want but the problem is that this issue is only going to grow larger and heat up to a point where this figurative potato cannot even be tossed around. We have to realize the damage we are causing, as Bill McKibben said in his work The End of Nature, what we think we are doing to nature is something like “stabbing a man with toothpicks” we are so unaware of the damage we have done in spewing so much carbon into the environment. What we have really done as McKibben would go on to say is “We have built a greenhouse, a human creation, where once there bloomed a sweet and wild garden.”
Our contributions to this world have been in many ways unnecessary and more so endangering. Mark Schapiro, author of Climate Shock in his book brought up the fact that every time you fly you are putting large amounts of carbon into the environment whether you mean to or not; there are so many ways in which typical things in human life are decimating the environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency “By 2100 global average temperature is expected to warm at least twice as much as it has during the last one hundred years.” This trend would eventually lead to an environment that would be uninhabitable for humans. So, even if it is out of desperation, now is the time where we must start a new trend. If you are tired of voting, of waiting for all of the politicians and scientists to come together and figure out a solution like so many people are then perhaps you should try voting in a different way, with your choices.
Think about this; you buy a banana from the grocery store, you are making a healthy choice and you aren’t hurting the environment, right? Wrong. Most bananas come from South America and are grown their until they green and then are packaged up in refrigerated containers and sent out by ship or even plane to places around the world where they are put into more refrigeration units before being driven through whichever country they are then in, all the way to your local grocery store where you can drive to buy them. There is a lot of energy being unnecessarily used there. Think even beyond this now, think of all the products you buy that say made in China, or Indonesia or Vietnam, or any country other than your own and now realize the unfortunate reality that you are contributing to the high carbon emissions being put into the environment around the world everyday probably at least a few times a day.
This is a system that has been going on for generations. So while it is not our fault that it started, it will be as much our fault as anyone else’s if we do not end it. Alternate endings to what could happen to humans have already been discussed in movies like Everything’s Cool and Earth 2100 and neither expresses much optimism about the future. Both see humans getting caught up in the lifestyle we have grown so accustomed to and that leading to our ultimate demise as a species in one way or another, really a scary thing to think about, but if we don’t ever HAVE to think that way or keep thinking In the way too many people commonly do.
It is a hard thing to break the chains that societal norms have imposed on us. It requires thinking in a different manor, something suggested by Julia B. Corbett in her book Communicating Nature when speaking about “transformative ideologies” she said “to look beyond one’s own dominant paradigm and envision an entirely different way of “being” in the natural world.” Why buy food and clothes and supplies from around the world when there are farmers markets and local businesses right around us offering much more sustainable options? It is really a simple thing, one of those moments where you just go duh. Buy food that is grown organically just a few miles away from your home from a farmer you know and not food that is pumped with chemicals, grown by people you don’t know from an entire country you probably don’t know much about either, duh. Ride your bike around once in a while to help out the environment, your wallet and your body, duh. Bring your own bags or jars to the supermarket so you don’t have to keep throwing out plastic that ends up in our oceans, duh. Don’t buy processed packaged goods where once you are done eating you are left you with two things; an upset stomach and a piece of plastic, duh.
Opportunities to engage in these “duh moments” are all around us, there are stores today that actually refuse to package the goods they sell, you bring in a jar or buy a jar from them and they fill it with however much you need with whatever you need. The idea is to think about what you are doing in a way that relates to another thing Corbett mentioned in Communicating Nature, having a sense of “deep ecology”, wanting “to transform human interactions with the natural world from anthropocentric to ecocentric and a recognition that all life on earth possesses as equal intrinsic value, value that exists independently from human needs and desires.” It can be as simple as saving water; only running the water when you wash your hands when you need it. Hand washing your clothes. Using natural compost toilets or toilets that reduce the amount of water used so you aren’t flushing away clean drinking water, duh. People can buy small solar panels or wind turbines for their homes, there are ample affordable opportunities to reduce your carbon contributions. All you have to do is think about what you are doing and what will the cause of that be; you have to realize that this is not your world or even the humans world, this is a world for any and everything and we as humans are just a small fraction of that group. Thinking in this manor will cause us to act with the respect that will keep this beautiful and bountiful earth thriving for all of its future occupants.
It is the personal potential within all seven billion of us that can end climate change. These “duh moments”, these simple things we can all do can help the world immensely. Imagine how much healthier the environment as a whole would be if just once a week everyone engaged in making these conscious decisions. We are all just trying to live life in a way that is convenient for ourselves so why not look past the toxic normality that is the typical product to consumer based system. Why not grow your own food, why not save gas money, why not do what you can to help the world. It is the personal potential within all of us that can save the world, duh.
Some food for thought moving forwards: Here is an article talking about a study done on climate change. Perhaps before we as humans can move forward in uniting with nature, we must unite with each other. With multiple opinions and ideas being expressed about the topic of climate change, how will people know where to start, or if they even need to at all. Read this and think about what you can do to end the confusion and work towards combating contamination.
First off, great job incorporating the reading material into your post. It supported your claims and flowed very nicely. I really enjoyed the ‘duh’ moments thrown in there because it made it feel more personable if that makes any sense at all. It made the subject matter less daunting and easier to follow along with, which is awesome. All in all I really enjoyed it and it definitely seemed like you knew what you were talking about. You were effective in getting my attention and keeping it, and your writing came off kind of satirical and sarcastic, which is without doubt a plus for me. Your focusing on certain pieces of the literature we read was concise and made what you had to say more coherent, rather trying to explain everything, and it worked in your favor when it came to your writing. I would say in the future to watch for repetitive words. While the ‘duh’ moments were highly amusing they were constant. Also I would have liked to hear more about your views and your take on the whole issue. Most of the time I felt like I was reading a great explanation of everything we discussed instead of hearing what you had to say along with the clarification. I think pointing out what you have to say would make for a better discussion later on, but I really did enjoy it and think the writing is great. I really have no other comments except keep up the good work.
ReplyDelete-Nicole Cruz