Does The Environment Matter?
Passionate though I am about environmental issues, I recognise that this feeling is not universal. If it was, our world would be a very different place. It strikes me that most people are not interested in the environment because they’re just trying to get by, keep their job if they’re lucky enough to have one, pay the mortgage/rent, feed the family, be happy – or at least, content. How can we wake them up and engage them?
I appreciate the inherent presumption in this question. Just because I think the environment is important, why should other people agree with me?
First, IS the environment important?
A shuttle bus driver once said to me, without knowing of my environmental mission, “I’m not interested in the environment”. I had to bite back the retort, “So what are you going to live in, then?” The environment is not a standalone issue, separate from us. It doesn’t just AFFECT our health, our food, the air we breathe, the water we drink. It IS all those things. We are a part of the environment, and it is a part of us. In my view, that makes it pretty important.
Photo by Roz Savage
Second, why should the environment be important to ME? (ME in this context being the generic individual, not ME Roz Savage.) “The impacts won’t be felt until after I am dead, and I have more than enough immediate worries, so don’t bother me with long-term hypotheticals.”
Putting to one side for now questions about how long it will be before serious impacts are felt, I’d just like to challenge this mindset by asking: Where is your sense of legacy? If you believe that this generation is seriously impacting the long-term health of our species and our planet, do you not care how history will judge us? If humans of a couple of centuries ago had bequeathed to us a right old mess and an impoverished biosphere, wouldn’t we feel justifiably aggrieved? Is that how you want your grandchildren to feel about you?
Third, nothing I do as an individual will make a difference, so why should I bother?
It is true that there are now 7.1 billion of us, and so it is easy to feel that anything we do is just a tiny drop in a very big ocean. But never underestimate the power of accumulation. I use the metaphor of my ocean crossings. It took me around 5 million oarstrokes (give or take) to row across 3 oceans (more stats here). Every oarstroke mattered, not because it got me very far, but because to have taken fewer oarstrokes would have left me drifting around somewhere offshore, short of my destination. Every single action counts, taken by every person, every day of their lives. It all adds up.
But of course I can’t make anybody believe something they don’t want to believe, or behave a way they don’t want to behave.
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
(P. J. O’Rourke)
What do you think? Does the environment matter to you? If yes, do you have any ideas how we can make it matter to more people?
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Thanks for your thought-provoking comment, Stan. I agree that conservationists could have a greater impact by uniting behind a single issue and having a concerted effort at raising awareness and action, then moving on to the next issue, and so on, rather than appearing uncoordinated and even disunited. We are sometimes our own worst enemies, allowing short-term commercialism to get the better of us. Maybe we need an equivalent of Martin Luther King to create a focussed message and action!Keep up the great work.
Then there are social justice issues. I am not referring to the fact that "good" neighborhoods see more rapid response to fixing environmental problems than "bad" ones. An example of the kind I am talking about is what happened a couple of years ago in my community. The city had passed an ordinance overhauling the water departments rate structure to encourage conservation. Even with the new prices which called for higher cost for larger amounts used, our water rates were among the lowest in the US. In order to break into the highest priced range of consumption a typical user would need to be watering an extensive lawn and garden. (At the low end of the scale rates were actually reduced so those who used typical amounts needed for indoor purposes would actually pay less.) Due to the public outcry at the rate increase, fueled largely by misinformation from a few media sources, the city council reversed their decision. Some of the progressive council members originally supporting the change voted to step back because, "they didn't realize how important having a green lawn was to low income families." So, in order to make it easier for low income families to have large, green lawns (Many water conservation efforts see these as going the way of the dinosaurs as fresh water becomes more and more scarce.) we put the entire resource at risk because we don't want to discriminate against low income families. I'll leave that story at that and move on to an underlying cause of the backlash.
In making their point against the higher rates, the media sources I mentioned above used some outdated science and some blatantly wrong information to suggest we have an unlimited supply of water and don't need to conserve.
So, another thing we need to do to get people to care about the environment is raise the level of scientific literacy among the so called educated people of the world and improve their critical thinking skills.
With that I will sign off and finish preparing a talk that is my latest opportunity to share good water science with members of my community.
Stan M