Dissecting the World

Dissecting the World

            Enough is Enough.

It is not enough to say that the world and its inhabitants, are dying a little every day but to think that human beings are not only juggling their life in their own lives in their hands, but also the world and all the other inhabitants as well is unbelievable. After reading “The Collapse of Western Civilization,” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, and “As the World Burns,” by Derrick Jenson and Stephanie McMillan, I began to recognize a common theme in the novels: sometimes the act of knowing does not always lead to the act of doing, and sometimes the act of doing is not always the reaction of knowing. 

Originally I held a similar mindset to that of Teju Cole, in his piece “The white Savior Industrial Complex.” This document voices the idea that, action should wait until thought and knowledge have been gained, but now I realize that people DO know what is going on in the world, and instead of someone, stepping up to do something about it, WE all step back to allow someone else, who does not even know that we are advocating for them to take on the problem in our subconscious. The problem exists. We know. Yet WE still do nothing.

Earlier this week my class was asked to research articles about plans or actions that have been done in response to global climate change. The problem was that everyone found a plan, or some form of a beginning initiative, but no one found any sort of solution, that any country has come up with to combat the race to the finish line for the planet.  In both novels the problems of climate change are stated plain and simple, and so is the solution. Throughout The Collapse of Western Civilization, we are shown that if we do not change our future will be inevitable and death will prevail. The same message is drawn in As the World Burns except in my opinion a greater light is given to humans in the fact that just because you are informed does not mean that you care          Although my class had a rigorous debate about the use of the term we, I find it appropriate to use here because I consider myself a part of the WE, we as a human species, we as a collective group of people who know about the problems destroying earth, and we who sit idly by wondering what to do or if the solution we potentially come up with would even work.  I am ashamed to be in this we category, but I am placed here because I am not a part of the solution, so therefore the problem exists, and I know about it, yet as I have done all my life, I do nothing but sit, ponder, and at this very moment write this paper.

Is it fair to ask someone to take on a task that they really are indifferent to? 

I pose this question because as my class goes further into topics of the environment and environmental ethics, I can infer based off the ideas presented in these two readings that asking someone to fight for something they have no desire to be a part of is not wise or practical. In Jenson and McMillians graphic novel, we are presented with characters trying to fix a problem, and in every attempt to do this we are faced with a character who simply does not want to help because he believes that the problem in no way affects him not now, nor in the future. This is the way a lot of Americans and people around the globe think. So again is it fair to ask someone to take on a task that they really are indifferent to.

The answer is no. The problem with having someone on your team who is indifferent to the cause that you support or is not educated enough to know what is going on is that they will only look out for themselves. As a human being, who wants to live life to the fullest I understand the will to want to live your life to the fullest and to some people, this comes with the early desire of money. The love of money leads to greed, and once greed comes into the picture the act of mutualism is no longer present. Greed leads to consumption, which leads to the desire of obtaining power, and when it comes to thinking about what these factors could mean to our environment, the only thought is negative.

Both books share the commonality that there are things that people could do to help save the world, but this process is long and hard. We began to realize that the power rest in the hands or big businesses, corporations, and capitalist and this means that the harmful effects on the environment fall low on their list of protected grievances.

Enough is Enough. As my teacher said, it is time to stop waiting for someone else to find a solution to the problem, and it is time to take risks and make something happen. I do not wish to continue to live life as a WE, instead I want to live my life as me.