As you all know (from previous blog entries) I come from the cornucopian school of thought where conservation doesn’t exist and resources are abundant. At this point in my life I’m relatively uninterested in saving the Earth, as I believe a brighter youth will find ways to deal with our depleting natural resource supply.
(Guess which one I am??)
With that said, let’s face the cold hard truth. Had A Conservationist Manifesto (a book by Scott Russel Sanders) not been assigned as required reading for my political sustainability topics course you wouldn’t have caught me dead holding it let alone reading it. Why would a cornucopian like myself be interested in learning how humans are solely responsible for ruining the planet? Do you really think I plan on making my own clothes? Planting my own produce? If there were money to be made at the cost of consuming resources, would I hold back? Nonetheless, reading thus far has allowed me to remove myself from my beliefs and try to understand the “other side.”
I have to give it to Sanders--his clear, insightful, and personal stories add a unique twist to his take on how to deal with the consumer consumption crisis. The book begins with Sanders explaining an ever so common crisis in his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. The events unfold like so: Businessman owns land. Land is worth money. Businessman sells land to developer. Developer clears land and creates housing. With opposition to this intelligent business transaction, local environmental activists begin to protest by camping out in the landowner’s trees refusing to let the developers develop. Sanders commends their efforts pointing out that it is their responsibility to conserve and preserve the little undeveloped land in left in Bloomington. This responsibility will be the preface for the entire book. Sanders feels that we are all temporary members on an imaginary ark with the intelligence and knowledge to protect all living and non-living species.
As the book progresses, he speaks of the immense amount of consumption American’s partake in. It’s as if we have no regard for the past or future, Sanders says more eloquently. We consume and consume. All we care about are tangible items, no matter the expense it may have to our Earth. One saying that I look to heart was when Sanders talks of advertisements and the messages they send to the consumer. Stating, “Get more stuff. Grab, gulp, go!”—could be the mantra for our hectic, profligate civilization (Sanders 31).” While pointing out the massive intake of resources the main focus of all of these “frightening stories” is to give advice on how “we” can stop all of this madness before it is too late. Sanders proposes talking more pride in your local community. Plant trees, walk places, ride a bike, buy local food. Be active and don’t sit back for a free ride. The choices we make, he says, will directly impact generations to come.
As I have briefly begun to lay out the first 80some pages of the text, I think Sanders has a very clear objective. We (Americans) are obsessed with materialistic items and money. We do not care about the gift we have been given (Earth), and if we continue to abuse it, it WILL be gone. He wants to educate “passengers of the ark” to be aware of this dilemma. We must work cooperatively to solve these major issues. Every act to stop the destruction of forests, every protest to stop polluting rivers, every conserved resource has a positive impact on the fight against exploiting our limited natural resource supply. We must conserve and we must fight for as natural resources are a common wealth.
Do I agree with his argument? Can his objective be accomplished? Let me break it down for you plain and simple. I understand that we as a population are consuming resources at an unsustainable rate, but the bottom line is we, as a race, are greedy. Money means power to vast majority of the population and for myself and most, if it comes at the cost of future generations…then let them figure it out. Some may say—you’re being arrogant. You haven’t created any offspring so how could you possibly care about future generations? Maybe they’re right…Sanders does have a couple hundred more pages of convincing to do. As of now, his objective isn’t going to come close to being accomplished. I’m all about time efficiency and his proposals are anything but that. Let me break it down again—I understand that when I buy a sweater from the GAP it is causing tons of pollution and creating lots of waste, but do you think I’m going to sit and knit a sweater for 3 hours? Not even close.
Most definitely my harshest post-but I’m just being real people—go sleep in that haystack.
I'm interested in your use of the term "intelligent business transaction" (para. 3). Intelligent for who? For when? It would seem that this action, in a business sense, is a beneficial one with no repercussions for the developers or the previous land-owner. However, if, as you say, we are "consuming resources at an unsustainable rate," then don't you agree that these sorts of actions will actually void the possibility of such transactions in the future? Sustainability for the environment doesn't have to mean eradication of business. In fact, it could be seen as a way of sustaining business. Take the Tragedy of the Commons (the Brown's Woods issue being one example), which manifests itself in a collective disregard for unsustainable business practices. The eventual demise of a market or business is inevitable if there is no thought of the future. An investment in business REQUIRES an investment in the future if you want to maintain a steady source of revenue.
ReplyDeleteYou claim that the future is responsible for these problems, since their effects are not being felt at the moment (which is questionable). Your reference to not having offspring of your own as being a potential source for this inconsideration has merit. But maybe thinking about the situation in reverse would be helpful. Had you not grown up in an environment of plenty--one in which you were provided food, clothes, shelter, water, and a number of other things--you would not have survived. A human being's ability to self-sustain (in the current environment) is not present at birth. Instead, extreme dependence on a familial group is needed in order to grow into a more independent person. How can you say that the future needs to deal with these problems when your entire existence is only allowed through past generations?
burn. that's a haystack of red fire ants. in any regard, there ought to be some balance of time efficiency and production (minimizing pollution, but in no way eliminating it). I would agree sustainability is far from cost effective, but i propose there is something to be gained. I think that the maintaining of resources can be viewed as a way to moderate profit. If you use less now, there will be more available to us down the road,as well as it being more readily available. Take the over fishing. If we sacrifice for a number of years off from ecploiting the seas, there will be that much more for use in the future.
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting make your own sweating, or even pay twice as much for an "organic" sweater, I'm just saying use less, conserve a bit. Get a one sweater a month versus ten new shirts.
rafe--brilliant frickin point about the dependence on past generations...But i would urge to say that you have no choice to make what you can make of what youre left with. if we leave the future with shit. they're kind of forced to figure it out.