December 16, 2016 - 11:58
In last paper, I recalled that before starting to read As the World Burns, I thought the main solution to people’s indifference toward the global warming is to tell people what they can do in daily life, no matter how trivial they are, instead of just stressing on how serious the problem is becoming.
And when I just began to read As the World Burns, I was so excited when I found the book offers the same the solutions as I thought----tell people to start protecting the environment from some trivial little things in daily life such as “replacing one regular light bulb with a compact flourescent” which “saves 150 pounds of carbon dioxide per year”(p.5), “install a low flow showerhead to save 350 pounds of CO2 per year,” and “wash your clothes in cold or warm water to save 500 pounds per year.”(p.9)
However, I felt desperate when I continue reading it. I gradually realized that the power of people doing small things in their daily life is far not enough to prevent what is happening. It’s even can be harmful. “They give people the illusion that the problems we face are easily solvable…Fifty simple things…The book should be called ‘Fifty Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial while the World is Destroyed.’”(p.37)
Though it seems the graph book should be more relaxing, actually, it did make me feel heavier than the science fiction did.
And I said in the end of the last paper that I hope those who have the real power to make some change to the world could realize sometime that we’ve already been viewed by the animals as “a bunch of psychopaths.” (p.27)
But one day, when I opened the book again, I found it not the idea of this book is not helpful to for us to fight for the environment as I thought it is before.
As I said, this book makes me feel desperate. Though both of the Collapse of Western Civilization and As the World burns are both fictive, the fictive disaster of the future still leave me some hope, but the fictive scene which reflects the happening reality makes me desperate. It is good because making people feel desperate is the first to make a change. However, it’s far not enough to just make people feel desperate.
And it seems that this book provides the ”solution” which asks us to protest but I don’t think it is practical. It’s good to arise people’s awareness, but not everyone has the time and sense of responsibility to advocate for the nature.
What’s even worse, I think in the current situation, this book may even have some negative influence on protecting the environment.
First, because it denies those efforts that people have made to protect the environment so far such as using public transportation or using environmental-friendly shopping bag instead of plastic bag. Admittedly, those little efforts are not as helpful as people thought they are, but those little daily movements do help. Denying them will cause a blow to people’s confidence, which is a horrible thing because confidence is an important factor to success.
What’s more, since it may decrease people’s confidence, it may also make people react negatively toward the environment issue.
“Since I can make no difference, and I will not die immediately, why I should I still care about the environment?” That’s what my brother said when I told him his belief that little movements make huge progress in environment protecting is actually a lie made by corporation and government.
The change in attitude will lead to the change in daily actions. When people feel desperate, some people will choose to protest to the government, but more people may have the same thoughts as my brother has. Thought they want to make a change, they may feel too heavy and too helpless to do so.
Though it’s no wrong for the author to point out the real cause of global warming and various pollutions and it’s necessary for us to receive these kind of information, keeping blaming the corporations and government will only give people excuse to behave indifferently toward the environment issue and escape from their responsibilities, which will only make the situation worse.
Then, what we should do?
First, I think, we should admit the strong relationship between us and the corporations and the government which we may “hate” due to environment issues. We have to admit that our life relies heavily on them. We benefits a lot from the various products of the corporations and the profit they made for the society(though most of the profit go to themselves, but they still do help the economy of the society). In order to take the responsibilities that we should take, this is the first thing we should do.
Then, I recalled the point made by the author Take Back the Economy, the choice made by individual can affect the whole society. The next things we should do is, keep doing those tiny little daily actions, not those useless actions criticized by As the World Burn, but something that could force those corporations and the government to make a change.
For example, we all know that the oil companies have done evil to the environment such as cutting down the forest and unlimitedly using the natural resources. We all blame them for what they did, but if we calm down and carefully think about it, we, people who advocate for environment protecting, are actually one of the reason of the evil they did. Why? Because there is a such a large demand of oil in the market economy that they can get a huge profit by endlessly hurting the environment. And we cause the large demand oil. So driving less and using more public transportations is, in fact, a way for us to contribute to the environment, not because driving less can bring less carbon release, but because if we all do so, the oil corporations will be forced to slow down the production of oil and do less harm to the environment.
It may heard a little idealistic, but compared to the view that we can do nothing but protest, it gives people more hope. And what’s more important, people should always be united together to fight against this huge challenge, we can’t make human beings split by simply dividing us to “corporation and government’s evil people” and normal people. Thought I feel it hard to stay positive to the environment issue currently, I always believe unity brings miracle. Hope one day every creatures in the earth can fight together for this unique beautiful blue wonderland.