Author: exs877

When it comes to talk about the environment and reducing pollutions, there is no one out there who hasn’t come across a “save the turtles” type, or “I only use metal straws” kind of of person. Yes, these things absolutely do help the environment, and I love to see to see people placing the change into their lives. The problem I have with this is that the amount of focus put around such a minute detail of this very wide issue. Straws do not even make up a significant part of the ocean’s plastic volume or mass, yet it is the thing everybody is doing to feel like they are making a difference. There are so many more actions that people often neglect to do, but push so insistently for a ban of plastic straws. Things like recycling the plastic that you use, or neglecting to use plastic bags have an even greater effect because things like milk cartons, plastic bags, and soda bottles are much more prevalent in our lives than straws are. Can you even remember the last time you used more than one straw in a day? Think about the difference in plastic used between one days worth of straw use at a restaurant and one days worth of plastic bag use at Wal-Mart. Creating changes in areas of pollution control that have a significant effect will create much more of a change, and worrying about plastic bag use rather than using a straw at a restaurant will be much more helpful to the cause.

Going back to the whole ‘save the turtles’ thing, I think that a lot of this caring for the environment idea seems to be more of a personality trait than a belief to many people. This contributes to the very narrow focus on these specific parts of the pollution issue. In general, these people are the ones that I see more likely to PO the side that does not really care about the climate issue. This makes it harder to get those people to want to help the cause, since they see that one very narrow-minded, uneducated type of supporter. This was very prevalent where I grew up, as my high school’s environment club consisted of mostly people who just wanted to seem like they cared about the issue, and the rest just wanted another club name to send to their college. What I’m trying to say is that you should not take a stance in an issue because it is hip or cool, but you should take a stance because you believe and care for it. I’m not interested in protecting the environment because I want to be cool- I have never expressed my beliefs about it before this blog. I do it because I genuinely care about what is going on and, although rare, it hurts to see the bad batch that creates a negative name.

As a side note, I’d imagine the shirt pictured above was probably pumped out of some factory that contributes to the overall issue of air pollution.

Moving away from which parts of the issue should warrant concern, we should make sure we are pointing our focus to the people and places where change needs to occur. In the US, a majority of the people already have a stance, and the percentages of who believes in climate change/ who doesn’t is not really going to fluctuate in a significant amount in the next few years. Thus, much of the rhetoric falls to deaf ears, as people are pretty cemented in their current belief. This discourse should be pointed to the ears of countries such as China or India where a large portion of the population has not heard very in-depth conversation about this issue, and where the corporations that hurt the environment go pretty much unchecked. A large part of the plastic use comes from these places since there are so many people there. There are more people in these two countries that in Europe and North America combines, so the discourse would be much more effective when aimed at these countries.

Writing this, a quote pops into my head. It goes, ‘Its not whether or not we fight, it’s how we chose to fight that matters”. Pointing the energy and passion you have for an issue at the wrong person, will create issues. Choosing to fight for a belief in a way that is calculated creates amazing results that help make a lasting change.

The push for combating climate change is one that has seen an immense following in the past year. It is something that everyone is talking about, including all those fancy politicians in the swamp. Ideas about the Green Deal, taxes on gas guzzler vehicles, and various other concepts are brought up, but what I seem to never see on the governmental level is actual change and movement. Now, obviously there is the intrinsic issues of our congress that create difficulties in law-making, but if this is such and important movement that deems our most immediate attention, then why isn’t change happening? Well, it is. Not all important and meaningful change happens on the governmental level.

Various organizations have risen to the task of planting trees, encouraging less plastic use, and educating the public on the intricacies of this issue. Take the example of Team Trees, which popped up in the fall of last year. This was an internet-breaking movement which gathered people from every corner of the globe to come together and donate money to plant trees. Through social media, the Arbor Day Foundation was able to create this movement that showed how change happens when there arises an issue that may people care about. The organizations gathered 20 million dollars in only ~3 months. I’m happy to say I was able to donate 50 big ones to this cause, as did so many other. Names such as Verizon, Elon Musk, Jeffery Star, Pewdiepie, the CEO of Twitter, the CEO of YouTube all dot the list of the highest donators. This was an event that gathered so much support, and there are many others out there that strive for the same goal.

These programs target a very wide, and young audience. The people I watch on entertainment apps like YouTube or Twitch are spending their earnings organizations that help the environment. With their actions, they inspire others to follow. The passion of the creator is spread to the viewer, which is spread to their friend, and then to their friend. This creates a chain that reaches people, like me, who wouldn’t have donated if it weren’t for these people that inspired me to stand up and do something.

On a much smaller and local level, Penn State has the Green-to-Go system at the dining commons.

According to their website:

“Students and guests use 495,000 polystyrene containers at University Park annually. That’s almost a half a million containers sent to the landfill every year! As a reusable and recyclable container, the Green2Go Box takes the landfill out of the equation completely.”

Small institutions like this add up, and at many colleges in the States, there is a similar system. Also the non-usage of plastic bags at Penn State (as of recently, I believe) is something that will have an enormous impact when implemented in many places in the world. The small actions of each community allow the people to achieve something that our government cannot: change.

And that is what being civic is all about. Following the movement to achieve something greater than ourselves. The sense of community we feel when we accomplish something together with our peers. The sense of pride in having participating in an event that will effect the future of our world.

Our government is meant to represent the public, but the passion that the US community holds for helping the world doesn’t seem to get reflected in the results of our lawmakers. Change has seemed to emerge through these other mediums, though, and this has fueled the main sources of support that go into making a difference in the world of climate change. I guess what my whole point of this is, is that change begins which the individual. The man who donates to the fundraiser on his Facebook page. The woman who plants a tree in her backyard. The kid who becomes inspired to do something larger than himself. These people all come together to create a movement vastly more impactful than any law or regulation.

 

Watch the news or scroll on a news site for an hour and you will probably come across a piece talking about protests. The issues which these protests cover are relavent to the modern day, and it is highly likely that you first heard about these issues through a protest or event that occured and was covered by a news program. Protests are a great way for many people to come together to support or oppose a specific issue. Whether peaceful or violent, they seem to catch the eye of many throughout the country and/or world. This large spotlight comes with many side-effects, both positive and negative. The positive being that the cause is spread to those who may not hear it, and the negative being that anything the protestors do is seen on a incredibly large scale. In recent years, there has been many protests and gatherings to support the upkeep of our planet’s environment and help keep the world healthy. Also, in recent years, there has been an increasing prevalence in more radical and uber-passionate types of debates and protests. This has sadly affected protest regarding the environment, and has led to some regression in the convincing of the public to be more aware of their actions and how they affect the world in which they live in- which is what I believe the main goal is that many who gain the public’s eye attempt to communicate.

To gain support from those who initially oppose you requires you to build a mutual respect and not be ignorant to the other side’s beliefs and reasoning – both of which are the foundation of a successful conversation. The route which seems to be taken more, though, is to cause disruption and demean the opposing side. One of the recent examples of the lack of civility is in the environmental protests that disrupted the Yale-Harvard football game in November. Also in the past few months there has been numerous instances of people blocking the streets to bring attention to their climate protests. A few days ago, this happened in Glasgow, and 3 months ago it happened in London, Berlin, Sydney, and Amsterdam. As Moisés Naím writes in the article linked above at ‘blocking the streets’: 

“It’s just the latest manifestation of the dangerous illusion that… street protests based more on social media than sustained political organizing is the way to change society.”

There needs to be rhyme and reason in the action of a group to enact political change, and this is something that I see a lot of the masses lacking in the climate debate. At the governmental level it seems to diminish, but not go away entirely. Some current politicians prove to be great examples of how to conduct professionally and logically while still keeping in touch with the emotion intrinsic to an argument like climate change.

For the protestors who pursued disruption instead of discussion, environmental protection was something that was extremely important, but the way in which they demonstrated and performed their acts to gain support ended up doing the opposite.

I think what fuels this type of action is the major events that have been taking place like the fires in California, The Amazon, and Australia. This seems to be furthering the ‘end of the world’ idea that plants seeds of fear in people. This turns into the public acting irrationally and doing things that end up hurting the movement that they fight for. These extreme actions then lead to extreme reaction, which creates a viscous cycle. This is an issue that I think is extremely detrimental to the arguments of this civic issue, and as someone who supports 90% of what these protestors are pushing for, it even creates a disdain for them in my mind that makes me not want to be involved with the movement at all. This absolutely depressing because environmental protection is something I deeply care about, but the conduct from many of the most widely spoken groups makes me less inclined to associate myself with the movement. I would also imagine that these events don’t exactly increase the respect or credibility that the people who oppose these ideas have for the protestors who cause the disruption.

A way to get around this endless loop of unproductive arguments and protests is to realize the methods of effective arguing and do what has the most impact, not which evokes the most response. There should be a balance of ethos, pathos, and logos in the arguments to effectively communicate the ideas that one wants to see enacted. I genuinely hope that this is something that changes, because I truly want to see change happen in this regard.