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The Politics of Limits: Interests within Interests Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus
The following selection is from BreakThrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (2007, pp. 86-88), which Shellenberger and Nordhaus co-authored. See ”Interview with the Authors“ (p. 0) for a brief biography. _____________________________________________________________________________________ The environmental justice movement has failed to provide a meaningful and compelling agenda because it continues to see the environment as a thing separate and distinct from everything else.
[E]nvironmental justice advocates, with the blessings of mainstream environmentalists, focus on diesel buses, oil refineries, and asthma in poor communities that are faced with much larger crises, from joblessness to poor schools to the lack of affordable health care. While there is little evidence of a conspiracy to poison nonwhite Americans with toxic pollutants, Americans living in low-income, predominantly nonwhite communities disproportionately suffer a variety of poor health outcomes. In a winner-take-all economy, such outcomes are almost inevitable. Poor Americans are more likely to live in polluted urban areas and in close proximity to polluting industrial facilities, highways, and bus and truck routes. They are also much more likely to lack adequate health care and housing, to work in industries with high occupational health hazards, and to suffer disproportionately from a variety of nonenvironmental health ills. They have higher infant mortality rates; lower life expectancy; higher levels of substance abuse, domestic violence, and incarceration; and higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. To be poor in America is to be unhealthy, and there are a multiplicity of causes. And therein lies the problem. Poor communities, particularly poor, predominantly nonwhite communities, are confronted by a staggering array of social ills. Jobs are scarce, basic community services such as supermarkets are nonexistent, health care is poor, schools are falling down, gangs and drug-related crime are ubiquitous. The environmental justice movement ignores all of these concerns because, like the mainstream environmental movement, it sees them as separate from the environment. Despite their rhetoric of expansiveness, environmental justice advocates have made environmentalism smaller, not larger. It is a category within a category, narrowly focusing on specific environmental issues and addressing neither the primary public health issues confronted by communities of color nor the central issues of economic opportunity, education, and social mobility that lie at the heart of poverty in America. The environmental justice movement has failed to provide a meaningful and compelling agenda because it continues to see the environment as a thing separate and distinct from everything else. Why else would environmental justice advocates direct their efforts toward reducing exposure to toxic chemicals from refineries but not from cigarettes? Why else would they focus on eliminating diesel bus emissions that contribute to childhood asthma but not improving dilapidated housing that contributes at least as much to the same epidemic? If environmentalists see the world through green-tinted glasses that filter out the social context for the outcomes they desire, environmental justice advocates wear blinders. In focusing narrowly on finding racial disparities in exposure to environmental pollution, they ignore virtually everything that really matters to the communities on whose behalf they claim to speak. Whether in Sao Paulo or Harlem, environmentalists will remain small and irrelevant so long as they ignore the central importance of prosperity to both community health and ecological concern. The legendary labor organizer Saul Alinsky taught that effective organizers ”start where people are at.“ And where most Brazilians and most residents of Harlem are ”at“ are communities faced with needs that simply take precedence over environmental pollution or the relatively insignificant health threats that environmental pollution causes. Today there are signs that some local environmental justice organizations around the country are evolving into something more expansive, something that doesn’t insist on placing pollution at the center of their politics. Groups that were once focused strictly on air pollution are today advocating jobs, health care, and kinds of urban development that lead to livable communities. These post-environmental justice organizations, most headed by younger leadership, are in various stages of creating something more expansive. Many environmentalists and environmental justice advocates argue that economic growth and development are not inconsistent with sustainability and environmental health, and in this they are correct. There is no reason that Brazilians and Harlem residents can’t get their various material and postmaterial needs met in ways that also result in a better environment. There are no shortage of strategies that could lead to a better, more prosperous life for residents of Harlem or Sao Paulo and have the significant ancillary benefits of cleaning the air in Harlem and protecting the Amazon in Brazil. But for those strategies to amount to a more powerful and relevant politics, the dream of a better, more prosperous life must be at the center, not at the margins.
Story of Stuff Blog
Home > Blog The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems October 7th, 2008, posted by Annie Leonard
Annie Leonard narrated ”The Story of Stuff,“ a 20-minute animation of the consumerist society. See a review in ”Reading Consumer Culture,“ p. 0.
Dear Story of Stuff Community, Remember at the end of the ”Story of Stuff“ film, when I said there is a new school of thought on how to organize the material economy and it is based on sustainability and equity? While there are many people doing critical work promoting this new school all over the world, I was especially thinking about my friend Van Jones when I wrote that. Van is the director of Green for All (www.greenforall.org), a U.S.-based organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Over the years, I’ve learned a ton from Van about strategies to promote ecological sustainability AND economic justice. Van’s message is really important because too often environmental protection and economic development are presented as at odds with each other. Just this past weekend, a member of the Berkeley City Council came knocking on my door, as they do annually, just before the election. I told him I was concerned about the Pacific Steel plant down the street which is belching out tons of neurotoxins into my neighborhood, where kids still play outside. The City Council member nodded empathetically but patronizingly explained to me that he needed to balance environmental concerns with jobs. I told him that dichotomy is so 1980s. There’s a new school of thinking on this! We can – indeed we must –invest in economic development that cares for both the environment and workers. There are loads of good, clean, safe jobs to be had in a transition to a green, sustainable economy. This week, Van Jones released a new book The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems that explains strategies to advance the green job agenda. The book is called: by Van Jones. It is a really important book that needs to be read by all of us concerned with the future of our communities and the planet. I’d love to hear how Van’s ideas resonate with you and your community. ~ Read on! Annie
Fashion Victims: Conventional Cotton is Taking a Heavy Toll on the Planet, but the Organic Market is Growing
Brita Belli E Magazine: The Environmental Magazine Sep/Oct2007, Vol. 18 Issue 5, p32-33
Abstract: The article focuses on the impact of conventional cotton on Earth and the beneficial effects of growing organic cotton. The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) stresses the link between protecting the environment and protecting human rights and has made the issue of cotton industry abuse the centerpiece of its campaign. According to Petra Kjell, an EJF campaigner, cotton is the world's thirstiest crop and it takes more than 500 gallons of water to produce one cotton T-shirt. An organic T-shirt might tell consumers a bit more about how that cotton was grown, but not how it was stitched. One could be buying an organic T-shirt grown by fairly compensated farmers but stitched by children in a sweatshop. According to the Organic Exchange, organic cotton production increased 76% between 2005 and 2006.
When she gets up in the morning, a seven-year-old Uzbek girl heads not to school but to the cotton fields. She carries a plastic water bottle filled with pesticides. The June day is muggy and hot, and as she douses the plants, the chemicals burn her skin. In September, she will return to these fields, missing school for up to three months while moving between the rows of cotton, stooped over and picking furiously to try to meet her daily quota—between 20 and 100 pounds per day.
If the girl doesn’t pick the required cotton, or if the cotton she’s picked doesn’t meet the owner’s standards, she will likely be threatened or beaten. At night, the older children are sent to dormitories with up to 20 sharing a room, with little to eat besides bread and tea. They must drink irrigation water and have no running water for bathing. If they are lucky, they earn 38 cents per day for their efforts. Many of the hundreds of thousands of children suspected of forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields earn nothing at all. Uzbekistan is the world’s second largest exporter of cotton (after the U.S.), selling around one million tons per year to Europe, China and elsewhere, according to the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). Uzbekistan’s authoritarian ruling regime profits handsomely off its cotton earnings—some $1 billion annually—in exchange for its suffering citizens and hardened, barren land. EJF stresses the link between protecting the environment and protecting human rights and has made the issue of cotton industry abuse the centerpiece of its campaign. In its report, ”White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton,“ EJF writes that in Egypt, a million children were used to control cotton pests. A 2003 report noted that more than 240,000 children worked in cottonseed production in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh harvesting seeds sold by giant agriculture companies like Monsanto, Unilever and Syngenta. The children, mostly girls, ranged in age from six to 14, worked 13-hour days around dangerous chemicals and were paid less than 50 cents per day. The U.S. cotton industry, represented by the trade organization Cotton Inc., says it can’t influence international policy. ”We’re prohibited by law from getting into policy,“ says Cotton Inc. Executive Vice President Mark Messura. ”Much of the crop in China is handpicked by women and children. Much of the cotton in India is picked by children. But it’s beyond the scope of our organization. It’s really a part of these cultures and these societies. It’s a larger issue than us.“ But consumers buying cotton clothing are seldom aware that their cheap pants and shirts come at the expense of children forced into labor as well as irreversible environmental damage. ”Cotton is the world’s thirstiest crop and it takes more than 500 gallons of water to produce one cotton T-shirt,“ says Petra Kjell, an EJF campaigner. ”It is also the world’s dirtiest crop, responsible for the release of $2 billion worth of pesticides every year, and accounts for more insecticide release than any other single crop. A teaspoon of aldicarb—a pesticide widely used in cotton production in the U.S.—is sufficient to kill an adult.“
Sea, Salt and Sacrifice The British newspaper Independent reports that from space, the remains of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan resemble a pair of collapsed lungs with an ailing liver beneath. Experts are trying to restore the northern body (”the liver“) located in Kazakhstan, with the help of multimillion-dollar loans from the World Bank. One dam is complete and another is underway, and the rising river water in the smaller Aral Sea footprint is scheduled to return that segment to its former depths by 2010. The remainder of the once-great sea is almost surely lost forever. Once the fourth-largest source of inland water, the sea has been nearly drained dry to quench the cotton crop’s endless thirst. The United Nations Environment Programme calls the loss of the Aral ”one of the most staggering disasters of the 20th century.“ Soviet leaders in the 1960s first diverted the two rivers feeding the sea to irrigate cotton crops through extensive pipelines. By the mid-1990s, three quarters of the sea was lost. Today, hulking metal ships lay rusting in the desert, and what water remains is so laden with salt that there are no local fish, ending one of the world’s most productive fishing industries. Much of the diverted water is lost—up to 60 percent, according to World Bank figures—through the antiquated pipelines, and the surrounding soil has become rife with salt accumulation, destructive even for cotton production. Nearby residents are constant targets for winds bearing salt and pesticides. Hypertension, malnutrition, anemia and respiratory infections are rampant. Tuberculosis is present in the region in epidemic proportions. The Organic Solution? Even when American consumers are aware of the ugly truth in cotton production, it’s difficult for them to know the origin of a particular T-shirt. The label might tell where the product was stitched, but not where it was grown. ”Given the complexity of the supply chain, it is difficult to trace where the cotton was produced,“ says Kjell. ”An increasing proportion of Uzbekistan’s cotton is going to China, the world’s biggest exporter of textiles and garments, supplying to shops all over the world. The likelihood of Uzbek cotton ending up in clothes manufactured in China and for sale in the U.S. could therefore be considered high, but without a label stating where the cotton fiber is from, it is near impossible to know.“ An organic T-shirt might tell consumers a bit more about how that cotton was grown, but not how it was stitched. One could be buying an organic T-shirt grown by fairly compensated farmers but stitched by children in a sweatshop. ”We need standards and we need them now,“ says Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association. OCA is part of the Domestic Fair Trade Working Group, which is trying to draw a permanent link between organics and fair trade practices and lobbying for a label that certifies both. Current U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic standards do not include fair trade practices; current fair trade certification does not ensure organic production. Cotton Inc.’s Messina believes the worldwide organic cotton industry offers potential for fraud and abuse. When it comes to certifying organic, says Messina, ”a lot [of farmers] take advantage of lax and insufficient enforcement.“ Since organic cotton looks similar to its conventional cousin, but costs 50 to 100 percent more, he calls it ”a dangerous situation.“ A Better Cotton Future Organic clothing is now one of the fastest-growing natural product sectors. According to the Organic Exchange, organic cotton production increased 76 percent between 2005 and 2006, and demand for organic cotton almost doubled during that time. Sales of organic cotton are projected to reach $2.6 billion by the end of 2008. But while such U.S. manufacturers as American Apparel are selling organic clothing, they aren’t sourcing their fabrics from U.S. growers. Cummins blames American subsidies, billions of dollars which enrich a small percentage of cotton growers, drive down the price of conventional cotton, pricing farmers around the world into poverty. There’s no incentive for these mega-farms to go organic—a process that would require at least a three-year fallow period for the fields to meet federal organic standards. ”We’re not giving a dime to help farmers who’d like to grow organic cotton,“ says Cummins. ”There’s not even a mill to process organic cotton on the West Coast. American Apparel is the largest remaining U.S. T-shirt company trying to use more organic cotton, and it has to buy from overseas.“ Environmental groups have mobilized to bring awareness to cotton’s impact on global communities. In 2002, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) launched the Sustainable Cotton Initiative, working with governments and industries in Australia, Pakistan, India and Central Asia to promote cotton that uses less water and hazardous chemicals. Through programs such as Women’s Open School in Pakistan, WWF taught women about the dangers of pesticides. ”We used to get many skin problems—rashes and dizziness,“ says cotton worker Zohra Bibi. ”We would use the same dirty hands for cooking afterwards and sometimes we would even use the empty pesticide bottles in our kitchens to store wheat! We thought that storing the wheat in the bottles would prevent it from getting spoilt! Now we know better.“ These on-the-ground initiatives are crucial to protect cotton workers and to begin to reverse pollution damage. But for a real overhaul of the industry, EJF says clothes shoppers must ”pick their cotton carefully.“ Consumers, say Kjell, should ”refuse to buy cotton products unless they know that they were produced without causing environmental destruction or human rights abuses. Consumers can demand change and help create a massive shift in the way this commodity is produced.“ Nicole Santer, an assistant project manager with WWF’s Freshwater Programme, says clothes shoppers should choose the best available option, which she describes as ”textile products made of organic cotton and/or made and traded according to fair trade standards.“ Until a universal fair trade and organic label is applied, conscious consumers may be best advised to shop from their home computers. ______________________________________________________________________
Analyze The Environmental Justice (EJ) Movement is ”a category within a category“ (the Environmental Movement) that focuses on specific race- and social class-related environmental issues. Create an analytical framework that distinguishes the concerns of mainstream environmentalists and EJ advocates from post environmentalists. There may be some overlapping. For example, unlike post environmentalists, both mainstream environmentalists and EJ advocates view the environment as separate from everything else. How else do post environmentalists differ? You can add more as you learn more. You may also want to include some examples and note sources.
__________________________________________________________________________________ Mainstream______ ___EJ__________ ___Post environmentalists Rely on visual evidence of Concerns/Focus human degradation of nature. Protect beauty of natural world. Human beings vs. nature ________________________________________________________________ Reflect What is your understanding of post environmentalism? What do you think of the critique by Shellenberger and Nordhaus of mainstream and Environmental Justice movements?
Discuss Join a small group to discuss the differences in the three ”waves“ of the environmental movement. Would you say that the Green for All organization Annie Leonard wrote about in her blog is an example of post environmentalism? How do you think post environmentalists would respond to the plight of the workers described in ”Fashion Victims“? Discuss the response of the Vice President of the U.S. cotton industry’s trade organization that the plight of these workers is beyond the scope of the organization, that legally it cannot influence international policy: ”it’s really part of these cultures…it’s a larger issue than us“ (”Fashion Victims“). Would you go so far as to refuse to buy cotton products unless you knew that they were produced without causing human rights abuses or environmental destruction? Do you think that if more consumers were aware that they would be likely to act, or do you think most people are inclined to think that the problem is distant or that they cannot do anything?
Learn More Learn about the controversial 1982 decision by a North Carolina court to dump contaminated soil into a Warren County landfill—a decision that put environmental racism on the map. Do a key words search to see what you can learn about the distribution of hazardous waste facilities in the U.S. today. Are race and socioeconomic factors still significant predictors of location? Search for current news reports of protests of the location of landfills or toxic waste dumps. Learn about social equity dimensions of sub/urban growth and development. Research, for example, Atlanta’s sprawl and social justice. Learn more about protecting the environment and human rights. Search for a themed issue on environmental justice in the American Journal of Public Health and other journals. Learn more about environmental justice organizations that have shifted their focus to health care, more livable urban development, and jobs advocacy. Learn more about the green colIar economy and organizations dedicated to the building an inclusive, green economy. Is there now a dual label for organic cotton clothing to indicate fair trade as well? Learn more about grocery store closings in low-income communities and how the health of residents is affected. Check out Seattle’s Community Coalition of Environmental Justice and EJ organizations in other communities. Do some research locally and learn about EJ issues in the community where you are going to college.
Write Option 1 Briefly describe the central concerns of environmental justice (EJ) advocates. Re-read ”The Politics of Limits“ by Shellenberger and Nordhaus. What problems do they have with EJ advocates? What do they suggest instead? What do you make of their critique?
Option 2 Conduct some research to learn about toxic waste plants located in minority communities. Select one to study. What is the impact of toxic dumping on the health of residents in the community? How would post-environmentalists view this issue? Do some more research to learn where you could send your analysis and perhaps recommendations. As one mayor pointed out (”Black Mayors Take on Environmental Justice“), many communities ”are not equipped to do an analysis of the problems“ and would welcome your participation.
Environmental Activism
It's Hip to Be Green; Activism: For today's young people, fixing the environment is job one. And they have their own ideas about how to do it.
Anna Kuchment April 16, 2007 Newsweek
General Editor Anna Kuchment reports on how a younger generation of environmental activists are dealing with global warming. There's no question that young people have woken up to the realities of global warming. Just before the first amplified chords of Guster's hit single "Satellite" filled the hall, lead singer Ryan Miller stepped up to the mike. Instead of belting out a song or urging the audience to buy the band's latest CD, he encouraged them to pick up a free pamphlet on the environment. "I don't want to get all preachy," said the slight, scraggly-bearded musician, 34, "but if one out of 10 of you did it, it would make a difference." Then it was back to the music. For the last year and a half, Guster, a popular indie rock band, has been on a mission to spread green wisdom to its fans along with its music. On each of their stops, band members invite their audiences--mostly undergrads who turn out for their Campus Consciousness Tour--into their bus, where they tout the benefits of biodiesel, show off their biodegradable tableware (made from corn and potatoes), explain that they use only rechargeable batteries onstage and soy ink in their liner notes, and urge fans to buy carbon credits to offset their car rides to the concert. "We don't want to be soapboxy, because that could backfire," says guitarist and vocalist Adam Gardner. "But it's something we just want to make available to people. And if they're not interested, then here's the next song." There's no question that young people have woken up to the realities of global warming. A new poll from Gallup shows that 44 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 believe we need to take "immediate, drastic" action on the environment, compared with 38 percent of those between the ages of 35 and 54, and33 percent of those 55 and older. A higher percentage of young people also say they understand global warming well and believe it results from human activities as opposed to natural changes in the environment. "We're on the verge of a sea change in young people's engagement with climate and other environmental issues," says James Gustave Speth, dean of Yale University's School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "I'm predicting a groundswell that will become a major force in politics." Those too young to remember the legislative victories of the 1970s, like the creation of the EPA and the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, have come of age in a world where recycling, organic food and annual Earth Days are a given. But they may also be the first generation to feel the effects of climate change so dramatically, from 70-degree winter days in the Northeast to the Christmas 2004 tsunami to Hurricane Katrina. Those events, combined with a sense of a lack of leadership in Washington on environmental issues, have galvanized young people. Many say global warming has become the campus cause of the decade, picking up where Vietnam, apartheid and AIDS awareness left off in the '70s, '80s and '90s. "There is a deep misconception about our generation and what drives us," says Jared Duval, 23, national director of the Sierra Student Coalition, the national student chapter of the Sierra Club. "So many people assume that we are apathetic because we aren't spending all of our time on antiwar marches the way our parents' generation did. That is not the result of apathy, it is the result of foresight." Reared on MTV, YouTube and celebrity magazines, young people are attacking the environmental movement with a different strategy than those who became politically active in the 1970s. Speth says the approach is a more subtle one. Some call it "light green." Rather than boycotting companies and organizing violent demonstrations, many activists are marshaling savvy marketing and technology skills in order to attract a wider, more diverse group of people to the cause. "We're hopefully trying to move the conversation into the mainstream," says Lauren Sullivan, who, with her husband, Guster's Gardner, founded Re-verb, an organization that helps musicians like Sheryl Crow and Barenaked Ladies make their tours more green. The group sets up tents before each show, where audiences can meet representatives from local environmental groups and sample organic products. Changing the stodgy image of the environmental movement is at the heart of what many young activists are trying to do. Danny Seo, 29, is a pioneer in the field of eco-living. Born on Earth Day, he started his first environmental organization at 12 and then worked as an environmental lobbyist in Washington during his college years. But he had a twin passion for design and home improvement, and chose that path instead. Now a noted eco-lifestyle expert and author of a popular series of books on environmentally friendly décor and entertaining called "Simply Green," he says he doesn't regret taking the softer road. "On the surface, it may seem silly to be focused on colors and fabrics and doing a gift-wrapping book, but there is a meaning. For a long time I think people have been saying you gotta go green because it's good for you, because it's good for the planet. But no one wants to do that for that reason alone. You have to make it affordable and stylish and exciting, because at the end of the day, that's what good marketing is." Along with lifestyle experts, the new environmental movement has spawned its own online magazines dedicated to green living. Lime.com, started by former Oxygen Media executive C. J. Kettler, attracts young people with a fresh combination of short videos, blogs about such things as green renovations and finding the best organic baby food, and funny news items about celebrities' efforts to be eco-friendly. "Historically, the image of the environmentalist in this country has been something of a scold--preachy and self-righteous," says Chip Giller, 36, founder of the environmental news site Grist.org. "We try to remind people that [environmentalism] isn't all about punitive things. It's not all about a reduction in your lifestyle." Grist, with a readership of 800,000, is often called "The Daily Show" of the green space because it uses clever writing and wit to get younger people involved. One of the group's claims to fame is turning a Chevy Tahoe ad campaign on its head. After Chevy asked the public to create and post their own commercials for the new car on Chevy's Web site last spring, Grist posted its irreverent take on the ad, inspiring hundreds of readers to do the same. Soon the Chevy site was overwhelmed with videos bearing slogans like "Don't Let All Those Deaths Go to Waste" (the cynical meaning: soldiers are dying for oil in Iraq, so you might as well fill up your tank). "We use humor as a way to get through the jadedness that some people have about this issue," says Giller. That's not to say the movement doesn't have its more traditional activist side. Duval's Sierra Student Coalition is now active on more than 300 campuses across the country, where students are pushing their universities to reduce their global-warming pollution to zero by conserving energy and getting power from clean, renewable sources like wind and solar. One student Duval is working with is Lauren Stuart, a Louisiana State University junior. After seeing her campus nearly wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, Stuart founded the first environmental group at her conservative school. So far, she has won a pledge from LSU's administration to build more bike routes and shut a large part of its campus to automobiles by August. Other activists have turned to money to exert pressure. Mark Orlowski, a 2004 graduate of Williams College, founded the Sustain-able Endowments Institute in Cambridge, Mass. In January the group put out its first annual College Sustainability Report Card, in which it gave grades to the 100 largest-endowed schools based on such indicators as green buildings, recycling, availability of local or organic food and how eco-friendly their investments are. But the group's main mission is to get universities to use their power as big investors to urge companies to implement more sustainable business practices.
Some are critical of this softer approach. Fred Meyerson, a professor of demography, ecology and environmental policy at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, says that many groups have started to shy away from important environmental issues like population control because they've deemed them too contentious. "They don't really push the envelope the way people did in the '70s and '80s." And, whatever the approach, even the most optimistic of Gen-Xers aren't convinced that environmentalism is here to stay. "We need to make sure this environment boom isn't just a two-year trendy thing, but that green becomes embedded in our culture," says Grist.org's Giller. No matter how it gets done. Catharine Skipp in Winston-Salem, N.C. and Heidi Richter contributed to this report.
[Insert photo.]
Tree hugger: Guster's band members Gardner (standing) and Miller (in striped shirt) | Fill 'Er up: Guster refuels with biodiesel (left) before a concert at North Carolina's Wake Forest University (below); fans (be-low left) | Flipped out: Giller, founder of Grist.org
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How Green Is the College? Time the Showers
Sara Rimer New York Times May 26, 2008
OBERLIN, Ohio — Lucas Brown, a junior at Oberlin College here, was still wet from the shower the other morning as he entered his score on the neon green message board next to the bathroom sink: Three minutes, according to the plastic hourglass timer inside the shower. Two minutes faster than the morning before. One minute faster than two of his housemates. Mr. Brown, a 21-year-old economics major, recalled the marathon runner who lived in the house last semester, saying: ”He came out of the shower one morning and yelled out: ‘Two minutes 18 seconds. Beat that, Lucas!’ “ Another of Mr. Brown’s seven housemates, Becky Bob-Waksberg, racked up the morning’s longest shower: Eight minutes. The house cuts Ms. Bob-Waksberg slack, Mr. Brown said, because of her thick, curly hair, which takes longer to shampoo. So it goes at Oberlin’s new sustainability house — SEED, for Student Experiment in Ecological Design — a microcosm of a growing sustainability movement on campuses nationwide, from small liberal arts colleges like Oberlin and Middlebury, in Vermont, to Lansing Community College in Michigan, to Morehouse in Atlanta, to public universities like the University of New Hampshire. While previous generations focused on recycling and cleaning up rivers, these students want to combat global warming by figuring out ways to reduce carbon emissions in their own lives, starting with their own colleges. They also view the environment as broadly connected with social and economic issues, and their concerns include the displacement of low-income families after Hurricane Katrina and the creation of ”green collar“ jobs in places like the South Bronx. The mission is serious and yet, like life at the Oberlin house, it blends idealism, hands-on practicality, laid-back community and fun. ”It’s not about telling people, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that,’ “ Mr. Brown said. ”It’s about fitting sustainability into our own lives.“ And hoping, he added, ”that a friend will come over, recognize that it’s fun, start doing it, and then a friend of theirs will start doing it.“ With their professors as collaborators, and with their own technological and political savvy, students are persuading administrators to switch to fossil-free fuel on campus — Middlebury is building an $11 million wood-chip-powered plant, part of its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2016 — serve locally grown food in dining halls and make hybrid cars available for shared transportation when, say, the distance is too far to bike and there is no bus. Students are planting organic gardens and competing in dorm energy-use Olympics. At Oberlin last year, some students in the winning dorm did not shower for two weeks, officials said. ”This is a generation that is watching the world come undone,“ said David Orr, a professor of environmental studies at Oberlin. Projects like the Oberlin house, he said, are ”helping them understand how to stitch the world together again.“ Dr. Orr’s course in ecological design became the incubator for the house when Mr. Brown and the two other founders of SEED, Kathleen Keating and Amanda Medress, enrolled in it last spring. They had done research on sustainability houses at Middlebury, Brown and Tufts, and had persuaded the college to turn over an aging, drafty two-story house. But before they could move in, they needed to make the house energy efficient. The class studied water and energy use, insulation, heating and cooling, and financing. Nathan Engstrom, Oberlin’s sustainability coordinator — an essential position on many campuses these days — gave advice. John Petersen, the college’s environmental studies director, checked out the house’s wiring. The college spent $40,000 to renovate the house over the summer, bringing it up to safety code. Mr. Brown used the carpentry skills he had learned from his father to pitch in on weatherizing. The students moved in last September. ”We sat down and had a meeting — ‘O.K., what next?’ “ Mr. Brown recalled. ”We didn’t know what it meant to have a sustainable house.“ That first night, amid confusion about who was home and who was out, they left the lights on. ”We said, ‘Oh, no, we just had a terrible first day,’ “ Mr. Brown said. ” ‘We’re leaving lights on everywhere.’ “ All year they studied together in the living room at night so they would not have to turn on lights in the other rooms. They mastered worm composting, lowered the thermostat — keeping it at 60 degrees for most of the winter and piling on blankets — and unplugged appliances. There is no television, but no one seems to consider that a hardship. ”You have the rest of your life to watch TV,“ Ms. Keating said. The unplugging of the refrigerator was not so easy. The house is divided in two, and each half has a kitchen. With everyone eating meals at a nearby student-run co-op, a decision was made to save energy by disconnecting the refrigerator and appliances in one kitchen. But which one? ”The fridge was kind of controversial,“ Ms. Bob-Waksberg said. ”We kind of had a little feud going on for a while. We talked it out.“ Now that the weather is warm, the residents of the house like to barbecue. Oberlin’s president, Marvin Krislov, dropped by with his young daughter a few weeks ago for burgers and grilled corn. Offering the ritual tour, the students demonstrated how they caught their shower and sink water in buckets and reused it to flush their low-flow toilet, a budget model improvised with a couple of salvaged bricks in the tank. ”He was using us to chastise his daughter for leaving lights on and the water running,“ Mr. Brown said. The bathroom is the showstopper on the tour. Besides the hourglass timer — Mr. Brown pointed out that it was called a shower coach and cost $3 online — the shower’s energy-saving motivational accessories include a picture of former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina plastered to the ceiling. That was Ms. Bob-Waksberg’s idea. No one wants to linger in the shower with someone staring down from the ceiling, she said. ”You could also look at it another way,“ she said, ”that John Edwards is encouraging me to take a shorter shower.“ Why Mr. Edwards? ”He had the strongest global warming policies of any of the candidates,“ Mr. Brown said. Ms. Bob-Waksberg, a religion studies major from California, was one of 25 students who applied to live in the house. With the house’s three founders looking for nonenvironmental studies types for diversity, Ms. Bob-Waksberg’s major, along with her confession that her environmental work had amounted to ”various weed-pulling, clean-up-the-bay projects“ back in high school, made her a shoo-in. ”We kind of roped Becky into sustainability,“ Mr. Brown said. Ms. Bob-Waksberg, along with Mr. Brown and carloads of other students, went to New Orleans to help after Hurricane Katrina. She will return to the city this summer to teach. By next fall, the house’s 24-hour energy-use monitoring system will be fully up and running. Every turn of the faucet, every switch of a light, will be recorded, room by room. The house, with its mismatched secondhand furniture, comic book posters and bicycles parked in the living room, is a popular meeting place for environmentally conscious student groups. Ms. Bob-Waksberg’s quirky, hand-printed signs (on recycled cardboard) admonish visitors to turn off lights and unplug appliances. The sign next to Mr. Brown’s electric keyboard in the living room says: ”The music was beautiful. Now go do your homework and don’t forget to unplug me.“ ”My keyboard,“ Mr. Brown said, ”is one of my indulgences.“ He confessed to another one. Sometimes, he said, ”on a Friday after a long week of finals, I have to have a bath and a beer.“ What about the shower timer? He laughed, sheepishly. ”I hide it on the floor,“ he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/education/26green.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
More Writing Options Option 1 Write an advocacy letter. In Writing to Change the World (2006), writer and therapist Mary Pipher shows how writing can contribute to social change. In a chapter on persuasive letter writing, Pipher describes a conflict that drew her attention – ”Spring Creek Prairie vs. Commercial Motocross“: Spring Creek Prairie, just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, is what scientists call a signature landscape, representative of the original ecosystem of our central plains. It is 626 acres of never-plowed, tallgrass prairie, which contains wetlands, natural springs, creeks, ponds, and indigenous woodlands—bur oak, cottonwood, and hackberry trees. More than 192 species of birds and more than 350 species of plants have been identified at Spring Creek Prairie. The prairie also includes Native American relics dating back thousands of years, and wagon ruts from Nebraska City—Fort Kearney cut-off to the Oregon Trail. Audubon Nebraska purchased Spring Creek Prairie in 1998….In January 2004, the director of Audubon Nebraska called…to say that the prairie was in danger. A private landowner planned to build a commercial motocross racetrack on nearby land. The noise alone would destroy the bird-watching on the prairie; visitors wouldn’t be able to hear the birds. The birds also might be frightened and leave the area, but even if they stayed they might be unable to hear one another and mate. The director asked [for] help in the campaign to save the prairie. (167-168)
Pipher follows with a discussion of effective prairie support letters sent to the county board that would make the decision. In the end, the protectors of Spring Creek Prairie won. The Sierra Club is another organization that often asks for support to preserve endangered wildlands (from logging in the Great Sequoia National Monument, for example). An advocacy letter can also be used for purposes other than supporting preservation of wildlands or wildlife. Do some research to learn about an environmental issue in the greater community where you go to college or in your home town. Find out about advocacy groups in the area and see what you can learn. Research back issues of the local newspaper for the past year. Perhaps a Wal-mart or other Big Box store has tried to move into the area. Are any Environmental Justice issues a concern? Have there been any chemical leaks? Is there a controversy over drilling or logging? Write an advocacy letter to an appropriate community leader or committee. You may find Mary Pipher’s guidelines for persuasive letter writing helpful, especially for thinking about your readers. Elements of a Persuasive Letter Mary Pipher, Writing to Change the World In the beginning and all they way through your letter, respect your reader, find some common ground, and, as much as you can, keep to what you hold in common. Empathize with the person you are writing to: ”I know being mayor is a thankless job,“ or ”The problems around light rail transit are complex and fraught with political and financial problems, and I appreciate that you are working on solutions.“ Or ”Even though we differ on how to meet our goals, we can agree that we do want affordable health care for everyone in our community.“ Make sure that you know the pint of your letter, and that your reader can also discern it. Exactly what do you want to achieve by writing this letter? What actions do you hope the recipient will take? A surprising number of advocacy letters or letters to the editor leave readers wondering, What is this person trying to say? Keep your language simple. Avoid ten-dollar words, academic language, or acronyms. Be straightforward. A reader, especially one who doesn’t know you, is unlikely to know when you are joking or being sarcastic….Mental clarity combined with brevity can be extremely powerful. Positive predictions have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. Hope is infectious. It is better to write ”Let us create humane learning environments for all prisoners in our state“ than ”Our prison system is a horrible mess.“ And include a statement of optimism: ”These are tough problems to solve, but I am certain that if we work hard together and support each other on this project we will be successful. When I must write a letter that includes criticism, I use what I call ”the sandwich method.“ I begin by stating what I like and value, then I sandwich in problems and controversial issues that must be addressed. Then I return to my original regard for the other person, my optimism, and my sincere desire to make things work for both of us. It is hard for anyone to resist a letter filled with kindness, compliments, generosity, and hope. Letters to change the world often end with a suggestion for action. Sometimes, these are concrete suggestions, such as ”Let’s meet next week and discuss these issues“ or ”I invite you to come with me to the prairie so that you can see its magnificence for yourself.“ (178-179)
Option 2 Proposal writing is another kind of persuasive writing that can take the form of a letter. Consider this option: Write a proposal to persuade administrators at your college or university to switch to fossil-free fuel on campus
Include how the project you are proposing is being carried out at some other schools.
Sustainable Development Collaborative Research, Writing & Speaking Options Option 1 Do some research about the environmental consequences of using plastic or Styrofoam for take-out drinks and food. Learn about eco-friendly products that could be used instead. Even when business proprietors become educated, cost understandably becomes a factor. Do a product cost comparison. Take into account transportation costs for the product and consider a location close to the community where you are conducting research. How much would the cost for take-out food need to be increased to pay for the container? If a larger supply would reduce costs for small businesses, could a larger order be shared and the savings passed on to customers? Talk to some owners of local cafes or restaurants.
Option 2 Do some background research about the problem of plastic bags in landfills. How long do they take to decompose? Customers are encouraged at some grocery stores to bring their own reusable bags. Could this ”green“ idea be encouraged at other kinds of stores? Could cashiers be encouraged not to automatically put anything customers buy into a plastic bag and ask instead—or could customers play an active role and not take a plastic bag for one small item? Has any city, state, or country started charging a small fee for a plastic bag? Is this idea a good way to discourage use of eco-unfriendly plastic bags? San Francisco has banned the use of plastic bags. How has that ban worked out? Have any other cities in the U.S. or the world banned use of these bags? Learn more.
Option 3 There has been much written about the environmental problems of plastic water bottles, yet these bottles continue to pile up in landfills. Many people do not know that tap water is safe; bottled water is often filtered tap water or not really from a ”pure“ spring; drinking out of plastic water bottles on a regular basis is unhealthy; the production of plastic water bottles is environmentally hazardous; and plastic water bottles take many years to decompose. How can you help educate more of the public? Learn more.
Option 4 Americans living in low-income, predominantly nonwhite communities disproportionately suffer a variety of poor health outcomes. … To be poor in America is to be unhealthy, and there are a multiplicity of causes. And therein lies the problem. Poor communities, particularly poor, predominantly nonwhite communities, are confronted by a staggering array of social ills. Jobs are scarce, basic community services such as supermarkets are nonexistent, health care is poor, schools are falling down, gangs and drug-related crime are ubiquitous. Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus, ”The Politics of Limits“ Do some research to learn more about supermarket closings in low-income communities. How do post environmentalists relate this kind of problem to environmental concerns? What in their view must be the central focus? In metropolitan areas, is the percentage of supermarkets in lowest-income neighborhoods significantly lower than in highest-income neighborhoods? Choose a specific community to study. If the community is local, think about including interviews with some residents about how not having a supermarket in their community affects their lives. How do they shop for groceries, especially if they do not own cars?
Write a research report that (a) identifies the problem and concerns, (b) describes your research findings, and (c) concludes with specific recommendations and/or reflections. Your report should be both informative and reflective. After doing some initial research, discuss how to divide up the work so that each participant in the group project has some responsibility. Each section can be peer-reviewed by the group. An abstract can be collaboratively written or revised.
In addition to (or instead of) an academic research report, consider making an oral presentation of your work and writing an educational or informative brochure. You can create a simple tri-fold brochure using a computer and include some visuals as well. Consider writing as well a letter to the editor of the local newspaper or to appropriate community leaders. You may want to present your findings at a community gathering and follow with discussion and maybe even a plan of action. Possibly seek some live local TV coverage. If you concentrate on your campus community, you may want to create posters or flyers to advertise your presentation and to get students to stop and think.
These options can be adapted to address concerns in your campus or greater community. They can also be used to get you thinking about possibilities, and you may want to propose other options that lend themselves to collaboration.
Excerpts from the covers of two educational brochures drafted by students along with one reviewer’s response to the content and layout follow. These teams wrote a research report and followed with community outreach. Do we really need to drink bottled water?
One city was having difficulty convincing residents that city water was perfectly safe. The detailed report residents were sent each fall did not seem to have any impact. The city’s new sustainable development planner offered to organize a focus group, including the mayor, to listen to a presentation by students and discuss a draft of an educational brochure about the bottled water problem. Students in this group presented the first draft of their brochure to the classroom community and the revised version to the mayor’s focus group. A discussion followed. A version of the brochure is under consideration for distribution with the pamphlet of statistics that the city currently sends to residents.
____________________________________________________________________________________ A Review from a Member of the Mayor’s Focus Group
Water Bottles- Overall the brochure contained good information that definitely will get people thinking about their bottled water consumption. A few suggestions: I think it would be helpful to revise the layout to include less text so people won’t be overwhelmed and I recommend using a larger font. I generally try not to go smaller than 12 as many of our older population will have difficulty reading the information. I would also make a reference to the fact the EPA has requirements that Annual Water Quality Reports be made available to all customers. (The first time you talk about something such as the EPA write it out as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and then later refer to it using the acronym.) I suggest rewording or omitting the section on the expense of tap water. I think it could have a reverse effect from what you were hoping for. Also, was it verified with the City that they would lower the price? I think a section possibly giving information on alternative reusable containers such as stainless steel bottles or the BPA free bottles would be beneficial. I think anytime we try to get people to change their behavior, we have to give them alternatives. While it may seem like common sense to you, some individuals will question what else to do. Debra Smith, Materials Recovery Manager, Broome County Division of Solid Waste Management Urban Tumbleweed The truth behind the plastic bag…
Bring Your Own Bag B. Y. O. B.
___________________________________________________________________ A Review by a Member of the Mayor’s Focus Group Plastic Bags- I think this group did a great job on their brochure. I like the layout and it is well organized. A few suggestions: I would try to use a larger font so it is easier to read. Waste to Energy (WTE) incinerators are mentioned under ”Other Considerations.“ In our community there has been a lot of controversy over WTE facilities. Several years ago there were plans for one in the area and the community became enraged by the idea. Although technology has improved, this is still a touchy subject with many people, so I don’t know if I would keep that in a brochure targeting this area. Also, a specific name is mentioned. Clarification is needed. An average person doesn’t know the name and the information loses some of its significance. T he brochure refers to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As with many issues, people sadly have blinders on unless something affects them or their community directly. I would include information that hits closer to home. I think it was mentioned yesterday about trying to find out how many plastic bags a store in our area, like Walmart or Target, use a year. That number could then be correlated to water, oil, fuel, CO2, etc. to help make more of a personal connection. Debra Smith, Materials Recovery Manager Broome County Division of Solid Waste Management
Writers at Work: A Guided Writing Assignment
Write an analytical essay or educational blog (800-1000 words) on a topic related to an environmental issue or concern. Your goal is to demonstrate the critical thinking you have done based on critical reading and discussion, and perhaps some earlier writing, and to encourage readers to reflect and even respond. Drawing on your own background, experience, and education, make a contribution and stimulate more dialogue. Review the categories for analysis in this project to see if you would like to write about something you have studied. You could, for example, do a rhetorical analysis of one or two of the selections in ”the heated debate“ and focus on linguistic choices and tone used to achieve a particular effect. Or perhaps you would like to write more fully about something you wrote briefly about earlier, or at this point maybe you would like to synthesize—to combine some responses to some of the reading you have done. You could also choose to investigate another environment-related topic. See, for example, ”Waste: The Result of Consumption“ in the Consumer Culture project. QuickWriting can lead you to discover what you want to write about. ”Writing can pull your thoughts along,“ as Russian linguist Lev Vygotsky pointed out in Thought and Language. Let’s take a look at a Writer at Work. Jackie had been concerned about environmental issues for some time when she came to this project and was considering a minor in Environmental Studies. She considers herself an environmentalist, as she reveals in this QuickWriting: As a person who cares deeply about the environment, it is not difficult to do a few small things that can help. It is not hard for me or other environmentalists because we care about the environment and it makes us feel good to do something that helps. The lifestyles of most environmentalists are different from those who do not care or don’t know and go about their lives every day without thinking about how they are affecting the environment (like shopaholics, for example, who exacerbate problems). Simple changes can be made like recycling, using canvas bags and cloth towels instead of paper, etc. These actions don’t go on in most households. Most middle-class households have dishwashers, paper towels, plastic bags, don’t grow their own food or compost—it’s all about convenience. We live in a convenience culture. You can even buy yogurt in a plastic tube now if you want to eat healthy while you are on the go. Faster is better. More is better. In some survey, I think it was in BreakThrough, 43% of people said they believed that environmentalists were ”extremists, not reasonable people.“ And that was in 2004. Probably the percentage is higher now. They don’t want to be seen as tree huggers, which I think is their idea of environmentalists. Al Gore said people NEED to change, but he gets classified by many as one of those unreasonable environmentalists and people don’t want to hear that they need to change. They are comfortable with their lifestyles, so why change? Changing a lifestyle is difficult. Jackie was especially interested in what individuals can do to help reduce global warming---”everyday environmental-friendly changes people can make.“ What stood out for her in this writing was her last sentence--”Changing a lifestyle is difficult.“ Then she began to wonder whether individual change was enough to make a difference. Here’s an entry from her Learning Blog: When I hear someone say ”Life is good“ (like the sign on the t-shirt), what that means is that they are living a ”good life.“ Economically speaking, they are ”well off.“ They feel good. They have Attitude. It’s hard to think differently in a culture where every day you are bombarded with BUY BUY BUY. Becoming aware of what you’ve bought into is the first step. I really like the whole idea of responsible consumerism—taking responsibility as individuals. I know this country is associated with individualism but I think, as Vaclav Havel brings up, we have lost sight of the commonality of all human beings. I liked the ending of his piece especially—about shared responsibility. We’ve become consumers it seems to me at the expense of citizenship. I think we can only do so much as consumers—responsible consumers I mean. We can ”go greener,“ but that’s a private act. And it’s important to learn what each of us can do to lower damaging our environment. I was going to write ”the“ environment and then I wrote ”our.“ ”The“ makes the environment sound distant, outside us. We are part of the environment and we have a responsibility. I’d like maybe to write something about responsible citizenship. I want to bring Benjamin Barber in. I browsed through his book Consumed in Barnes & Noble and got interested in what he had to say about public space. Malls and big box stores—those are public spaces today and what do people do there? Shop. I have read about some new malls that are trying to recreate the community feeling of old downtowns—put in benches, make the space park-like. But corporations are interested in sales and profits, not citizenship. We’re big on ”common interest“ groups, live and online. I’m not thinking about joining a group or protesting. I guess I’m back to thinking about public space again and connecting. Maybe everyone’s too busy working in order to have a better life (meaning car, house, furniture, upgrades). Who has time to reflect? I don’t think we think about being responsible citizens beyond voting. I think we need to be responsible consumers and responsible citizens. I think consumerism is out of control—hyperconsumerism. I keep thinking that education is the answer—it doesn’t have to be formal education. I feel sometimes like we’ve been dumbed down. I think I’m thinking too much! I need to focus J I know my biggest problem is going to be trying to cover too much. I know where I want to start and how I want to end. I’m going to list points I want to make and questions I want to raise:
1. What are we waiting for? Shared responsibility & not seeing ourselves as separate from environment 2. the need to question and become more aware (education) 3. >>more responsible as consumers: going greener, recycling, composting, etc.—something we can do individually 4. but what about shared responsibility as citizens? responsible consumers & citizens 5. seems like we are more disconnected than ever—malls, big box stores and sprawl (overshopping, commuting, houses connected by chemical green lawns) Conclusion—shared responsibility for our world/environment (we’re in this together)
Discuss When you have done some reflecting and informal writing about what you are interested in addressing, join a small group to try out your ideas and see how others respond. Ask for some feedback. Make some notes if that would be helpful. If you have not made a rough plan, do so now. Writer at Work: Jackie wrote this note in her Learning Blog: Everyone liked my questions. I need to stick to my plan! I got carried away when I talked in the group. I need to explain more what I mean about taking responsibility as citizens in terms of the environment, not just as consumers. I need to think about this more. Learn More Do some more research not only to learn more but to look for sources that support some of the points you want to make. Review your plan again to see where you could integrate some sources. Writer at Work: #4 I want to bring in Vaclav Havel (moral footprint). He emphasizes shared responsibility. And the BreakThrough guys (us/environment). #3 I’ll definitely use Burger. I really liked that article. #3 I have a good quote from the Dalai Lama that would work for responsibility—how we are all connected. #4,5And I have some notes from Benjamin Barber’s book Consumed (citizens). (Conclusion?) I’m going to look into a low carbon footprint program I bookmarked.
Write a first draft. Jackie scribbled some notes on a piece of notebook paper and went back and labeled 1-6. Then, using a computer, she inserted an outline (broken up) and wrote under each section, using her notes. (This was a new strategy for her.) She then read a printout, scribbled some revisions in the margins, made changes using the computer, and deleted the outline. She also tried out numerous titles before settling on a working title. The abstract she wrote (and which came up in a ”Read More“ link in her blog) follows along with her revised draft. ___________________________________________________________________ Writer at Work: Jackie Working Title: Global Climate Change: A Challenge to Behave Responsibly [or maybe an Opportunity?]
100-word ”I Believe“ statement READ MORE… I BELIEVE that each of us has contributed to the world in which we live and that we all have a responsibility for our world. The environment is not something separate from us—something out there. We live in the world and, as The Dalai Lama says, we ”are connected with everything in it.“ We need to take responsibility—individually and collectively—as both consumers and citizens. Taking responsibility does not mean just accepting that we are responsible or passing an act (to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, for example). Many different kinds of actions are necessary. ______________________________________________________________________
Global Climate Change: An Opportunity to Behave Responsibly
The actions of each of us…have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.“ -The Dalai Lama, A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night
In 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it was ”likely“ that human activity played a role in global warming. By 2007 IPCC concluded that human activity was ”very likely“ the ”driving force“ (Aigner, Corum, Nguyen, 2007). In an Op-Ed titled ”Our Moral Footprint,“ Vaclav Havel (2007) posed this question: Is it necessary to know precisely the degree humans have contributed to global climate change? While Havel believes ”technological measures and regulations are important,“ he also believes that ”support for education, ecological training and ethics“ is equally important. Further, he believes we need to develop what he calls ”a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings“ and to ”see this issue as a challenge to behave responsibly and not as a harbinger of the end of the world.“ I think that Havel would agree with Shellenberger and Nordhaus who point out in their book BreakThrough (2007) that the environment is not ”a thing separate and distinct from everything else.“ We contribute to the environment—to the world in which we live. While many Americans are aware that we live in a consumer culture, few question consumption. How many of us ask—Do I need this? Is this product something I want or has some advertisement subconsciously made me think I have to have it? Do we even think where our trash goes when it is taken away? We know it goes to a landfill, but how many of us know how long it takes plastic bottles or everyday plastic bags to decompose (if they ever do)? Advertisers aren’t going to tell us something negative about a product. When I was home recently, my mother went to Home Depot to replace our garden hose, and she came back and tore off the packaging to find a statement about how California law has to make it known that garden hoses should not be used for drinking water for human beings or pets because of some chemical and that you should wash your hands after touching the hose. She never saw this label before and was shocked. I googled and found out that this is true of most garden hoses, and if you want to be chemical-free, you need to get a white-colored hose that is used for boats or RVs, not a garden hose. If it weren’t for this new California legislation, who would know? I thought of all the times I had gone under a sprinkler as a kid. I wondered about my dog. And what about children in their little plastic swimming pools. And that plastic is probably another problem. I don’t want to become a hypochondriac, but it enrages me that consumers are generally clueless. In order to become more responsible individually as consumers, clearly we need to become educated. ”What if we were to pledge we would not bring anything into our lives for which we were not willing to take responsibility?“ as Chris Burger (2008) asks in his article ”Responsible Consumerism.“ He recommends recycling and composting as well as taking a hard look at our consumer habits. While his article focuses on the environmental aspects of consumer responsibility, he recognizes that consumers are often unaware of the social exploitation behind a product. If environmental and social costs were embedded in the price of products, Burger believes that consumers could make more informed decisions. In the meantime, he writes, we must ”educate ourselves as to what kinds of activity…brought the product to the shelf.“ ”A truly responsible consumer will do nothing less,“ he concludes. But how do we become ”truly responsible“ consumers? Burger’s article appeared in an alternative newspaper. Readers in his community are probably already somewhat educated about responsible consumerism. ”It’s Hip to Be Green“ a title of a magazine article reads, but for whom? What group of consumers? For those consumers, there are plenty of ”Go Green“ books at Barnes & Noble or Borders or Amazon.com. But what about ”shared responsibility“ as citizens of the world? What kind of ecology do we want to see? asks scholar and political theorist Benjamin Barber (2007): ”Do we want a green world or a brown world? An armed world or a disarmed world?“ He believes that those are the choices we can make only as citizens: ”There’s nothing you can do about the war in Iraq, or about brown space, or green space, simply in your role as a consumer.“ He explains: We have to ”retrieve our role as citizens“—reassert ”our citizenship in public, not just in private; as citizens and not just as consumers.“ Our public spaces today, however, are malls and Big Box stores where people go to shop. The American Dream has become a nightmare of ”fleeways,“ rotaries, overpasses, underpasses—a maze of multi-lanes and high speeds to get to chemically green lawns, which is the only way many middle-class Americans are connected today. ”Where’s the democracy?“ Barber asks. Democracy, he believes, is left to politicians today. I think that we need to take back democracy and not just sigh that we live in a consumer culture and can do nothing. But should democracy be left to the politicians? Should economic goals only be about production and profit (oil drilling in the arctic, for example)? Shouldn’t they also be about human and environmental impact? Shouldn’t we re-create public space and make time to talk as citizens without having to join a ”concerned citizens“ common interest group? Shouldn’t we all be concerned citizens? Don’t we have ”a common responsibility for our world“ as both consumers and citizens? [I think I need to include ”challenge“ or ”opportunity“ in the end.] 925 words References Aigner, E., Corum, J. & Nguyen, V. (2007, December 11). Global warming. The New York Times. Retrieved January 2008, from the World Wide Web: http://www.newyorktimes.com/archives
Barber, B. (2007, April). Runaway Capitalism. Alternative Radio, Seattle, WA.
Burger, C. (2008, Winter). Responsible consumerism. The Bridge, p. 8.
Havel, V. (2007, Sept. 27). Our moral footprint. The New York Times, p. A3.
Kuchment, A. (2007, April 16). It’s hip to be green.“ Newsweek. Retrieved May 18, 2008, from the World Wide Web: http://www.newsweek.com/archives
Shellenberger, M. & Nordhaus, T. (2007) BreakThrough: From the death of environmentalism to the politics of possibility. NY: Houghton Mifflin.
LEAVE A COMMENT
Peer Review Guide Reviewers: Read the draft through completely before responding. 1. What environmental issue or concern did the writer choose? In your own words, what do you think the writer is trying to get readers to think about? 2. Is it clear to you as a reader that this writer is informed? Would you say the writer is __somewhat informed or __very informed? Comment: 3. Would you say that the writer is in control and uses sources in support or do the sources seem more like they are inserted in the text? Are the sources credible? Comment: 4. List point-by-point what the writer brings up. You can make an informal sentence outline. (See ”Outline Later,“ Resources, pp. 0-00.) 5. Review the outline. How well does this order work for you as a reader? Would it make sense to switch the order? If so, make specific references. Is there anything that you think should be excluded—or included? Let the writer know. Think about the writer’s focus and the length requirement before you comment. Help the writer tighten this writing. An example may be related and interesting but not need as much detail as the writer has used in this draft. Perhaps the writer has used too many examples. Or perhaps the writer needs to vary the kind of support. Reading takes time. Take time to re-read and comment as the reader you are. Your reading can help the writer review from another perspective. 6. What did the writer get you to think further about in relation to a particular environmental issue? Or was the writing more informative than critically reflective? Explain. Make specific references to the text. 7. Introductions often have to be revised several times. How did the writer do in this draft? Were you able to get right into the writing or did you feel distracted or jarred as a reader? Comment and feel free to make suggestions. Remember that your goal is to help the writer re-see and revise. Your reading can also help you re-read your own writing. 8. The conclusion is where the writer leaves you as a reader. Did the conclusion leave you thinking critically and wanting to respond? How could the writer improve? The ending is very important. In this case, the ending should invite conversation—reader response. Re-read and offer suggestions from a reader’s point of view. Remember from your own experience that it is hard, having just written something, to imagine reader response. Always make specific reference to the text. | |||||
