My cousin Helen sent me the picture on your right last week. My brother and I are in the photo with my maternal grandparents in their home in Rangoon, Burma. I kept thinking about this picture the past week -- with some local-global connections. The world has changed a lot in the 37 years I changed countries -- from Burma to the U.S. The local-global connection I want to share has to do with resources. My parents recycled (and reused things) in Burma four decades ago because resources were scarce. We moved to Minnesota in 1972, where there were fewer recycling options back then than there were in Burma.
Like people in poor countries, we reused as much of any material as possible in Burma. And when we first came to America, we were poor, and continued our ways of careful use of resources -- until we became part of the American dream. I have seen a lot of people change habits with increased wealth and availability of resources throughout my lifetime. As far as I can tell, it is an innate human trait to go with societal trends, and hence, generally, people from all cultures have adapted to the consumption lifestyles of Americans when they come to America. (Always exception to every general human behavioral rule.)
It is easier to buy things you can afford rather than mend things that can be reused. It takes time to figure out the recycling and reuse options in your community, but we need to change before we are forced to change. I know humans will change in crisis as we did in WWII, and as much of the world does today with every crisis that occurs locally. The question I have is, will we be able to change before we are forced to change?
Wonderful discussion topic! I may seem like a cynic, but I say "No, as Americans, we'll be forced to change." While many Americans find pride in an American brand of freedom, Americans are fairly rooted in tradition and habit. Conservation is both a social and behavioral issue, just like every social and behavioral issue Americans have faced and are facing now. Americans don't easily adapt to new ideas--although we, perhaps, adapt more readily than some other societies. We will go kicking and screaming on conservation as well. This social issue is, perhaps, the biggest one of all because it calls into question our entire way of living and the way we express our position in the world. This social issue is not one of accepting others or of tolerance; this social issue hits us at home where we live.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with what Dr. McLaughlin wrote. Generally, dramatic lifestyle changes have to be forced on us.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'd make a slight change to the original question.
My question is, will we be able to change enough before our environment forces us to make urgent and dramatic changes?
I think there is a large army of people in America who have and are making changes that benefit our communities and environment, but are those changes enough to make a positive difference for the environment, and how do we get more to participate in making change?
It would be nice if the changes that are needed could be quantified per individual. I think this would be a good way of providing people with a measurable goal that they/we could work towards.
I agree with you Patrick that a better question is "Will we be able to change enough before our environment forces us to make urgent and dramatic changes?" Clearly, what we are doing to the environment affects our health and well-being, physically, socially, and spiritually. The complexity of all these interactions plus the nature of a global market plus changes in population makes the changes we need to be socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable more complex than each person shall do X and only have Y. Here is where ethics and education comes in. It seems to me that we need to know enough of how we affect the environment, ecologically, socially, and economically and humane ethics to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the question you posed to me in the introduction conference/online classroom. I still don't know the answer. My husband seems to believe, that we will not change until we are forced to, but after listening to the NPR podcast on smoking I think that social trends can influence and change the world- because it has happened before. Already there has been a great shift in awareness and to some extent a behavioral shift- but I think it is still at the grassroots level and there is a lot more work to do.
ReplyDeleteFor some people, forced to change comes with essentially following the crowd. So yes, there is work work to be done to produce a large enough crowd to work toward sustainable change. Historically, we have produced large enough crowds to overthrow governments and produce revolution. Social changes toward sustainability needs to be less disruptive, and non-violent.
ReplyDelete