Activism: The Choice to Voice and the Power Behind it

By Chad Marvin

Personally taking action in order to support or oppose a stance is a very valiant thing. Contemporarily, it is often seen than although there are ample approaches one could take to voice ones opinions, quite often these beliefs lie dormant while the world remains as active and ever-changing as ever. Of course many of these changes can be good, but who is to say all of them are, better yet who is to even know about them in the first place? Enter the activist, the one who amidst all over the alterations occurring across the globe is able to pin down just one, or maybe a few more, and will then see that change through to assure it is revised with reason. Assemblages of people exist around the world carrying out such tasks and speaking individualistically, I am grateful for them. Look to any ecosystem or organism and you will certainly find that the one with the most balance in it, the one containing greater overall diversity, will also be the one who better thrives compared to one that lacks such a variety in its composure. This thriving example is in essence what the activist brings to a situation, a form of something that in it greater uniqueness is more well rounded and apt to exist as a part of the public world. 

In Communicating Nature, author Julia Corbett talks about how much complexity there is when trying to create the changes that activists will often seek to make. She starts by expressing the initial circumstances we face in saying “Since the earliest days of our country, our founders were concerned with crafting a system of governance that had both stability but also adaptability.” Essentially eluding to the fact that in society we do have a well-grounded system that is able to withstand whatever forces that may seek to spread their influence, but also that this system at the same time cannot be impenetrable to this influences for some may be necessary.  Corbett goes on to talk about the various ways the changes may come about within this system. She brings up different peoples that may seek change like “grassroot groups, ”institutional groups,”  or even the “individual.” All of them have different motives and often these motives can even conflict with one and other, for all are often actively trying to get a message across and if one person is saying one thing already odds are another will be saying something else. Corbett says “Through its story frame, each message will define the problem, who’s responsible, and the solution differently.” Meaning that between all the messages coming in there is probably as good balance of information coming from differing positions.

So how does the small environmentalist fit in to such large and at times hectic schemes, all while still having the time to still separate the trash and plastics? Corbett at first doesn’t even appear sure offering these discouraging words “Yet scholars have found that environmental concerns tend to be a mile wide but and inch deep – meaning that either favorable opinions do not match behaviors, or that opinions are not connected to on-the-ground conditions and choices of the individual, government, businesses and so on.” But then she goes onto detail the progressions made, “As a social movement, the environmental movement today little resembles the one that began over a hundred years ago. Some environmental groups are as large as small corporations” progressions have been made and in quick time too. Environmental groups are taking small steps each day to achieve a world that better respects nature, Corbett says “ our culture has accepted very limited definitions: wilderness is an environmental issue” this is a huge step.  But she does say that we are limited. She also if you have noticed in these quotes leaves the optimism to a minimum, “limited” “small corporations” so where does the environmentalist go towards to achieve success in making social change? Corbett suggests that the answer is right in front of us, in our name. As we have grown and assimilated into being regularity in society, to being that of a small corporation, we have lost the essence of who we are, corporations and groups that are quite the opposite of environmentalists have managed to receive our “green” image to keep themselves safe. We need a new meaning or understanding behind us, something that better defines the environmentalist and environmentalism, says Corbett “We must enlarge the definition of environmental messages and where we find them, and to be encouraged to go beyond face value.” This is our direction, we must confront the roadblock we are at and create a sign saying, “Take next exit towards the new and improved environmentalism.”

But what if we don’t? In The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood puts fourth a story with a supposition that doesn’t present the greatest outlook as far as what is ahead for us. Set in a post-apocalyptic place, environmental concerns are placed at the forefront of the reader’s attention. A quote from one of the main characters and leader of a group called The Gardeners reads “do not descend to a level that is too deep for any resurgence, or the Night will come in which all hours are the same to you, and then there will be no hope.” This advice comes for in the book, there are countless amounts of individuals, groups, gangs, cults and even governments that will not hesitate to attack, kill or even rape anyone who they come across. They live in an extremely threatening time where The Gardeners, a religious, environmental group of vegans who seek to live a lifestyle that is respectful to all organisms seem to be the last shred of home in an otherwise completely corrupt world. Adam one is constantly giving them messages similar to this warning them to be safe and it is even seen in the book when Adam thirteen is murdered by the government “CorpSeMen.” The book in a way is almost suggesting many of the things we hear in Communicating Nature where the environmental name is losing it’s image and the world is moving in a bad direction where something must be done.

Examples in the media can also show us the direction in which we must go towards to bringing a good meaning behind environmentalism. In the film Bidder 70 a man, Tim DeChristopher goes to a big gas and oil business auction and bids for a piece of land that was going to be used as part of the oil and gas businesses operations which would have absolutely damaged the land and surrounding area. DeChristopher won the auction but had no intentions of actually paying, he just wanted to stop this land from being abused and took the role of the activist to do so. DeChristopher went to jail for two years for this but he brought much attention to this issue through his actions. One can also look the movie The East where a women infiltrates a company that both targets Eco terrorists and heavily pollutes the environment. Through the story we see another way in which an activist could and maybe even should intervene in some situations to help the environment, even if it is dangerous to do so. The movie really makes you think, how much has to do on in the world before you yourself need to get up and take a stand against it all.

Another example comes in the article Eco-Activists Resist Eviction From Bristol Treetops, author Steven Morris gives us good understanding of how important it is for people to stand up for environmental issues. In it talks about a group of people living in the trees of an area that people are trying to bulldoze through, even through that area has some of the most important food growing lands. “Many local people and allotment holders are also opposing the scheme. They point out that the area is part of Bristol’s blue finger, where there is prime growing soil.” Obviously the protests made in this case were rightfully carried out. Just think about how important it is to have to noble activist now having all the sources I have presented in this blog post. What if environmentalism doesn’t gain a new meaning in time, what if companies keep trying to just wreck our land and food sources? What could happen? Are we really that far away from the circumstances in The Year of the Flood? Personally, I don’t want to find out and I’ll be active, in acting as an activist as much as I can because there is great power behind the making the choice to have a voice.

Respecting the Acres and Animals: The Path to Establishing Equality

By Chad Marvin

Ecofeminism and animal rights are two topics that have been intertwined far before they were even formed as ideas. Ecofeminism is an idea that links the wrongdoings done to women to nature by saying that these wrongdoings in many ways parallel each other. Animal rights are based on the belief that all animals and living things deserve the same equality that humans do as living things. Both of these ideas have been formed and have come to the forefront of people’s attentions during the time of the modern, technology driven world.  Take for example, a large-scale dairy farm, there; cows are raped through artificial insemination constantly until they can no longer produce milk. Here we see an obvious example of animals being denied rights as well as a female part of nature being taken advantage of.  The connection does not stop there, when people first settled land in America, they took the earth and its resources as things under their control, they strapped oxen to their plows and put their plows through the hills and trees, they granted themselves dominion over all that lied in front of them and created a trend that still exists today. In all places of the developed world today this can be seen, humans consider themselves above animals and above the land and often it isn’t even something considered, rather general knowledge that anything in the world is at human disposal.

It can be seen through many sources how humans will abuse the world around them, looking at everything, as a resource to serve the ever-growing needs of our ever-growing species.  From a New York Times article entitled U.S. Research Lab Lets Livestock Suffer in Quest for Profit, reporter Michael Moss writes, “At a remote research center on the Nebraska plains, scientists are using surgery and breeding techniques to re-engineer the farm animal to fit the needs of the 21st-century meat industry. The potential benefits are huge: animals that produce more offspring, yield more meat and cost less to raise.” Here an extremely anthropic view is given, that we as humans have the right to do whatever we want to animals, and should if it benefits us.  The article goes on to explain some troubling results, that animals being born from these experiments, are coming in bigger numbers however, they are all born with various physical abnormalities such as small bones, organ defects, and nutrient deficiencies. Such shocking facts, only resulting due to the fact that we as humans want things to be more convenient for us fall into the topics of animal rights and ecofeminism, we are exploiting aspects of the world in a way that puts them in an inferior position to us and from this we lose the integrity and true spirit of that aspect of nature. This feeling is one that is detailed throughout the article “As the decades have passed, the center has bucked another powerful trend: a gathering public concern for the well-being of animals that has penetrated even the meat industry, which is starting to embrace the demand for humanely raised products.” It is being shown here that people, some people at least are even recognizing this injustice to animals, there is a feeling that this is unnatural and unfair. Yet still this article tells of more unfair treatments to animals, like lambs who are being bred to live without the need for humans to take care of them and protect them, but already many lambs are suffering and being killed “30 to 40 percent of the lambs were dead, and some of those still alive were in bad condition, separated from the moms, and they would be dead the next morning.“ and for what, so that humans will not have to spend time with these animals as if they are so horrible.

The thought that animals are so horrible is something that can be seen even in cases where you would think of the relationship between animals and humans to be a loving one. The television show, Pitbulls and Parolees displays this, showing the disconnect between humans and dogs, namely pitbulls. In the show, there is a group of people who run an animal shelter for pitbulls as they are often seen as a species that is dangerous and unwanted. In the show, they display that these animals have many positive qualities and just because they have been devalued and diminished by a world that more and more wants the commoditized fluffy and friendly dogs, does not mean that they aren’t just as worthy of peoples respect, admiration and more so of being a part of someone’s family. The show points out that in a way these dogs have been denied equal rights to other animals, they have been deemed as violent and aggressive, but really they can be just as loving and affectionate as any other dog. In looking at this one species of animals as lesser to others, and then going on living our lives, as humans we create a severe inequality in the world.  In acting as we are we are not only taking away the rights of one species but we are changing the rights of all species, we are placing our bias onto what connotes the right to have rights, as if not all living things should have equal rights; we cannot act as if it is just to impose these restrictions on the world. We are an extremely powerful species, we can dictate anything that goes on in the world, but something we may want to think about is how this can change the way of the world. Pitbulls and Parolees show the countless pitbulls who have to live in shelters because they are unwanted. The show also shows the countless pitbulls found wild because people released them. We are changing the way the world functions exponentially, and it is probably time we change the channel to Pitbulls and Parolees, recognize this, and then change the way we live our lives.  

It is clear that although there are cases where people are striving to help animals, more influential people still are often making strong pushes to keep animals and nature in a place where they are ours to commoditize them and use them as we need them. An article written by Maddie Oatman for Grist titled Will the USDA Weaken Dietary Guidelines to Please the Meat Industry? talks about the fact that although today the world is focused on making our lifestyles more sustainable and environmentally friendly, there is still a focus on exploiting nature. The article says that since meat industries have received more strict guidelines as to how they can operate, that the meat industry has responded by spending millions of dollars to lobby against these restrictions. This just goes to show the nature of the modern world today, where spending millions of dollars to fight restrictions is more important that maybe just accepting these restrictions and not treating animals like they are merely slaves. All that was said in regards to the guidelines being expressed is that “a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods … and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with a lesser environmental impact” this is not new stuff, how many people have heard the expression “eat your vegetables before” and yet now the meat industry is kicking up a fuss, refusing to “eat their vegetables” (do what is right) because now everyone is being told this and it threatens their way of life, which is, well, threatening the lives of others, (the animals that make up the meat industry). To them animals are their property, a part of the world is theirs to kill and sell, there is no morality, just a more harsh reality being created by their senseless actions.

In many places this corporate takeover of nature is not going over well, from The Ecologist Magazine, an article tells about how some people are not accepting the way nature and its many forms are being treated. In Occupy Agriculture! Polish Farmers Sit in for Land and Freedom Julian Rose talks about how Polish farmers are protesting large agricultural businesses buying up their land to plant genetically modified crops. These farmers value the land and want to live with it, without it they cannot survive and in exchange they tend to it with nutrients: “a focus of protest against the sell-off of their land to agribusiness, the arrival of GMO crops, and the imposition of a failed 'Western' model of farming that's creating huge corporate profits while debasing food.” Here we see another case of the typical modern cultural norms acting like a leech to nature, sucking out all that it offers with no regard for its own health. And it obviously is a terrible thing, the article says “In February, 6,000 farmers marched through” meaning six thousand farmers who need to be on their land to live and produce food to make some money walked away from this to move towards showing that it is unacceptable to take land and suck everything out of it as if it is a bottle of water existing to fulfill ones needs. But like that bottle, the result poses and obvious threat to the environment, where does that plastic go and what happens after genetically modified seeds and chemicals have been used on the land? The answer to this is what the farmers are fighting, and it is a fight that all people should get it in on, for it is simply not right to use the land as if it only exists to be used.

It’s detrimental to look at land and animals as things to be used, with that mindset, the actions we take cause both to endure great harm. In a PETA video, it shows how animals are abused constantly to help produce all of the products the human market demands today. They are branded constantly, have their horns clipped, are castrated, artificially inseminated, and left to lye next to their own feces until it is time to abuse them more. What this video is encouraging is to think about this and to realize that our actions and needs as humans, cause animals to be brutalized for their entire lifetime. The video encourages people to think about vegetarian and vegan lifestyles, where you do not need as much animals products or any at all. This is a great solution as it is hard to produce all of you own food, if you go vegetarian or vegan you can help these animals by causing production orders to go down so that at least less will suffer. In living this way you may inspire others to do so and if a movement like this was powerful enough, it could stop this terrible treatment all together.

Looking more towards solutions and ways to help support the land and animals around you, things to think about are where your food comes from, and what are the details behind its travel. In a Think Progress article by Cole Mellino titled, Local Versus Non-Local Food: Is The Kind of Food You Eat More Important Than Where it Comes From? it is recommended that you think about where your food comes from, and how that impacts the world, all the carbon emissions it may take to produce it and ship it are important things to be considered. “The average distance traveled by nonlocal broccoli delivered to Virginia Tech during the month of October 2009 was 2786.0 miles. The total amount of carbon dioxide emitted as a result of this transport was 105,830.0 pounds. This averaged to approximately 11,758.9 pounds carbon dioxide per shipment and 15.3 pounds carbon dioxide per pound of broccoli delivered.” Here we get great insight into our impact on the world. But this is only from one food, imagine of impact of all of the foods you may have in your house. So what is the solution? The article suggests that eating locally grown food and also vegan and vegetarian food can reduce impacts tremendously. By buying locally grown food, you are reducing carbon emissions, and by eating non animal products you cut down on the amount of production that is necessary “Replacing red meat and dairy with vegetables one day a week would be like driving 1,160 miles less” which reduces environmental impacts across the boars! Less carbon, less animal cruelty, less destroying land! “so yes, eating less meat and dairy will greatly reduce the impact your diet has on the planet. However, the combination of choosing the right foods with a local approach will have the biggest impact.” It could be an extremely powerful thing to both lose the animal products and lose the carbon emissions.

Looking at all of the information presented, it is clear that animal rights and ecofeminism are two rightfully prevalent topics today. This is clear, but what is key to see is that what must be done is to see an issue all the way through. Do not just complain about aspects of nature being treated poorly, do something about it, Buy locally grown foods. Give up animal products. Spread the knowledge that things are not as they should be. A general point of all of the sources used in this piece is no just that something is wrong but that something needs to be done. Stricter guidelines need to be imposed, guidelines that will counter the meat industry’s menacing quest for dollars. Local farmers will take care of our land and should be given the freedom to do so. Animals should be without cages, without abuse and without the assumption that they exist to serve human needs.  Making personal choices to support all of these things is a monumentally important factor as well, going vegan, buying from these local farmers; living a life style that promotes equality for any and all is what must be done.

Assaulting the Animals: The Problem with Perceptions

By Chad Marvin

The aimless amble humans have taken in drifting further and further from the other millions of species we were placed on earth with has done nothing but fabricate a reality where we will be able to watch our simulated perception of the world play out in front of us. I wish I could say or just know that there was a time when humans and animals lived and communicated amongst each other to the point where there was no such thing as humans or animals; a time where we had not yet began to create systems that would detach us from our partners of the planet. Unfortunately the fact is that the world we live in today is so detached from the animals we once lived among and has been for so long that is hard to really say for certain that we ever did live in harmony with animals. Perhaps it was a couple angry cavemen that had a bad encounter with a tyrannosaurus-rex, but somewhere along the line, we as humans drew a line and creates a divide that has never since been filled. Today we can listen to this divide expand to the sounds of “the cow goes moo” and “the horse goes nay”. We live in giant boxes and our lives revolve around even bigger boxes where we can “buy” the very fruit that grow off of trees, and yet not us but the other millions of species are the oddities of the earth, according to us that is of course. Every day we lose more and more of an understanding of the other lives in the world, a trend which many people have picked up on throughout time.

Julia Corbett, author of Communicating Nature points out much of the issue behind the rift between humans and animals just in the name of her chapter, “Communicating the Meaning of Animals. As if the key to understanding animals is not through returning to our original setting in nature and living among them but is instead through understanding what we have connoted them to be. However in “Communicating the Meaning of Animals”, Corbett does point out some of the wrongdoings we have committed related to how we view animals, she says “We use animals as devices, metaphors, and symbols for a great deal of our expression and ideas.” This sentence might seem quite objective, and it is in terms of how it was written, however in Corbett’s objectivity, she hits upon a key issue, the “we.” “We use animals” to fit what we need them to, and we take them at face value. We see a jaguar, it is fast; we see an Olympic sprinter “that sprinter is as quick as a jaguar.” But what about the jaguar’s other traits, its mysteriousness, its position socially among other animals, what it may do for sheer enjoyment? Corbett continues her discussion of animals in pointing out that we have even moved past thinking about animals and their traits and instead we think of them relative to ourselves “Gradually, some predators were remade in a human image, an image that any predator could be tamed and made accessible to humans.” As we humans have grown and made our impact felt across all parts of the world, Corbett is suggesting here that so to have we made our mentality one where humans are not only felt around the world but are essentially the world. Even predators, even the most fearsome creatures to us are just a memory of that one time we saw them roar at the zoo, they are not their own entity, just a minute fraction of ours. Corbett expresses that we have essentially burned our own image of animals into our head even when we may not want to think of them in a certain way “Even when we seek out authentic experience and understanding, we cannot entirely remove the deer from its pop culture communication or the wolf from our historical hatred of it.” This is where our own simulation plays in our head, we see a deer and it is an innocent creature and the wolf, a devious and vicious beast. Who is to say however that this deer is not a wild, charging buck and that this wolf isn’t just calmly walking a trail meaning no harm to anyone? It is a tragedy indeed that we are “Communicating the Meaning of Animals” however in looking at this information we can gain a better understanding as to how we can stop “Communicating the(ir) Meaning” in our everyday lives and just try “Communicating” with the animals.

In Linda Hogan’s Deify the Wolf, she speaks about many of the mindsets which have set our minds far from a view that is justified or fair in its perception of animals, namely wolves. She was on a trip to see timber wolves of Minnesota and on her journey and was discussing her experience, she found that a lot of people there were there to see the wolf because it was some rare, dangerous, almost fictitious animal “A California woman thinks seeing the wolves would be “like in the movies.” There was also a trapper, who had someone take a photo of him with one of the dead wolves they were studying in a way that made it look like he had caught the tough animal. From both of these examples, Hogan gives us examples of how humans are placing their idea of wolves onto the wolves by implying that they are these creatures are only this rough tough things and there is no greater importance beyond that. Hogan herself points out that this is wrong, she asserts that we need to let wolves be whatever they are and think of them in the way that they truly act “Something wild must hold such sway over the imagination that we can’t tear ourselves away from any part of wilderness without in some way touching it.” What Hogan is getting to in her piece is the idea that we need to detach ourselves from our human impulses and let the wolf be a wolf. She talks a lot about the wolf and how in a lot of ways it is similar to us and this scares us for as humans we like to dominate and area and be able to walk around without feeling threatened. This is why we have hurt them for so long and the same can be said for other animals.

We eliminate what scares us or is different to us instead of embracing it, we as humans have even seen this happen among our own people and that obviously not acceptable. We need to recognize these faults and see that what we are doing in killing the wolves and other animals and ignoring them is no different then taking lives in wars or genocides. They are innocent live only seeking to live and be free. We have placed a picture of a smiling bunny eating a carrot in front of the rabbit dying from pesticides. It is this trend and idea that must be eliminated from the earth, not the animals.

Wasting the Earth Away

By Chad Marvin

In the summers, I work for The Town of Hempstead parks department. One of my coworkers there is quite interesting, he’s five feet eight inches tall, has plenty of stereotypic Italian bravado, he’s macho, he knows plenty of girls, he can infuriate you and get under your skin and yet part of you will still feel like you want to be his friend. One day while working with him as we trimmed a partially broken limb off a tree, he told me the story of why in college he created his own fraternity: I wasn’t about to let a bunch of assholes beat on me, when I should be beating on them” he eloquently explained. He felt as if he held a natural status of superiority over the others in his environment even though the system of that environment had functioned fine before he got there. While such a statement coming from such a person might seem like something you just say “yeah ok” to as you continue on with your daily affairs, the truth of the matter is there is much more than just the declaration of the alpha-male being expressed here.

What this is, is an aged anthropocentric idea, that we as humans need to go into an environment and clear all of the trees out, build a home with what was a home to many on what was a home to many as well, and then with those same materials, we must build a fence to keep the “assholes” my coworker had described away. Humans were not the first to occupy earth, if you’re a religious person you may even believe that the land and the animals were put on earth first. You may then too believe that man should "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth “(Genesis 1:28).”

Today after humans have ruled over the earth and everything in it, acting as the dominant species instead of acting gratefully towards all the species who allow us to live we have done irreparable damage to the earth. Moreover we have even moved away from the “fish of the sea” and “the birds of the sky” and created our own system in which people must partake in if they wish to “live” as we do now. The problem with all of this is that while humans have created their own environment, the one first presented to us still exists and is being smothered by the garbage and waste that we rapidly rear off into the world we live in.

In chapter four of Julia Corbett’s Communicating Nature, she discusses many of the issues that have arisen as a result of our work and consumer culture. Corbett says “Most of us live indoor lives, and the natural world is very much in the background of- if not divorced from- daily life.” She is describing the detached reality we have created as humans where we work in a capitalistic system crunching numbers all day so that we can have food on the table at the end of the day. But why not just grow the food and skip all of that? She goes on to explain the muck that we as humans have forced ourselves to trudge through in talking about how we essentially work to buy a house, to buy stuff for that house, to buy a car, to buy clothes; all so that we may have leisure time to relax… before we have to work again to keep all of things in our possession.  

Corbett comments on the mayhem that has ensued from this artificial atrocity we call our “lives” in saying “While it is true that consumerism is a culture in itself, it is a sad commentary to assert that we express and come to know ourselves best through shopping.” What she means here is that we are so far isolated from nature, that we have lost any true connection to it and now in a state of jumbled-disarray we supplant with material goods. And as we continue on this course of action we are exceedingly losing nature for we are literally burying it under the ample material goods that our lives revolve around in the forms of: food wrappers, plastic, e-waste, and the box that you got your new HDTV in. Corbett closes out her calling out of human consumerism in saying “Thinking that we can find solutions to our individual problems by buying products can only serve to detract from community life and broader public concerns, not the least of which is the environment.” If we continue to live the same way that we are now there is no telling how far this divide between humans and the environment will stretch.

Corbett continues to explain the wrong doings humans have impressed onto the environment in chapter five talking about leisure in nature as commodity and entertainment. First she discusses leisure and how its true definition is time in which you have “the self-sufficient activity of the mind, a mind which is its own best company, one that is not dependent on external stimuli for its action.” This is something that is quite rare today, for there are few places other than nature where one may be able to achieve this without being distracting by the unrelenting arms of consumerism. Corbett says “today’s marketplace encourages us to think of free time as yet another consumption opportunity and recreation as just another market.” This is true, in the world today do people not often shop for groceries or for the new charger they may need on their down time. Furthermore if you ever do have downtime and you want to buy a fishing rod or maybe some hiking boots are you not looking in the recreational activities section? It’s kind of funny how you will think of adults as the most superior people, who know the most when really all they do is go to work do what they are told, go to a store buy what they are told they need and go home to enjoy the things in their home they perceive to be necessary like watching TV.

There’s almost a sense of brainwash when thinking about this. And in due time will adults not tell their child to stop playing outside so much so they can “focus” and have all the great things their parents have. Wouldn’t it be greater to have the freedom to enjoy true leisure? This is a point Corbett is making. We live in such a fake world today where we have to do all of these things that we created in order to live, as if before humans occupied the planet or even industrialized it there was just no way to stay alive and safe while enjoying leisure time. Now if we are interacting with nature we are tending to our lawns or taking a walk through the park that probably cut down a bunch of trees to make the nice concrete path it has for you. Regardless, it is all centered around humans and regardless, we continue to smother nature and lose our connection to it. Corbett stresses in the end of her chapter “Commodification of nature is a theft of value from the natural world that cheapens it and does nothing to clarify or deepen our relationships to it.” We aren’t just hurting nature by living as we do, we’re hurting ourselves, and that surely isn’t something that is supposed to happen in the humans first world we have made so…

Perhaps we need to change our ways and rethink. In the documentary No Impact Man, we see Colin Beavan and his wife Michelle Conlin along with their daughter trying to live a year without having any environmental impact. This means no electricity, no throwing out anything, no driving or even public transportation, and even no toilet paper! Through the story we can see many ways in which humans are living a lifestyle that hurts the environment. Is it that hard to use sunlight during the day and when it’s dark, actually deal with that reality? Imagine all the trash he collected in a year of not throwing anything out, this documentary really points out just how far away we are from nature and how much danger we are doing to it because at the end of the day all of this families findings were only three peoples, imagine what billions of peoples pollution put together would look like. An article, Effects of Consumerism by Anup Shah details all that we are doing to the land in living in the materialistic culture that we live in. Through this article one can really begin to understand just how deep of hole we as humans are digging ourselves into. “Someone has to pay for our consumption levels” is just one line stressing the destruction we are causing. Humans have to change. This may seem hard but it really isn’t because all we have to do is return to basics. It is through farming, living communally and only using what we need that we will be able to live perfectly well without any negative repercussions. Through such routine actions we can change the minds of people like my coworkers and live better lives, and if not well, they’ll be the assholes.