Environmental Ethics: Here's a Little Optimism!

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Here's a Little Optimism!

Our last Zoom discussion about our government's role (or the lack thereof, currently) in fighting climate change was interesting, but at times a little depressing. I agree, there are a lot of reasons to be frustrated with the political system we have, since it seems to fail us so frequently. But, I want to argue that a revolution/civil war is not where our focus should be at all.

As all of you know, one of the biggest barriers to passing environment-friendly legislation is the fact that our politicians are heavily influenced by their donors. However, I don't think a revolution is necessary to solve this problem, especially when we consider how popular grassroots campaigns are becoming. I'm also hopeful that our two party system will shift into a balanced three or four party system soon, since I think Americans are getting tired of voting "against" rather than "for" political candidates.

Making these changes will take time, and quite a lot of work. However, I do think that Americans are capable of making it happen. If you're not feeling optimistic yet, I would encourage you to check out these 2020 polls from the Pew Research Center, indicating that the majority of Americans (67%) think that the government is not doing enough to reduce the effects of climate change. Now, if we can just get our politicians to make decisions that represent the majority of Americans, we are in the clear!

My point is that we are making progress, however slow. It is important that in this pivotal moment, which I believe we are in, we don't set ourselves back with extreme, pessimistic language. That is not how I think we will bring more people together on this issue. I don't think the conversation is over yet, and I certainly don't think America is either. Let's make the system we already have work for us! I'll get off my soapbox now... what do you think?

----

Weekly Summary:

9/24 Wrote this blog!

9/23 Comment on “Questions Sep 21-23”

Grand Total: 25 points

3 comments:

Tyler BrooksSeptember 24, 2020 at 10:19 PM
While I agree with your comments about not wanting another civil-war/revolution I do not think us transitioning into a third or four party system is not going to take place anytime soon. I say this because our voting system has evolved so much with the two-party system that it is extremely difficult for even a third party to get a seat at the table let alone anybody else. So I don't think this will happen anytime soon, but its always good to dream
ReplyDelete
Replies
PhilSeptember 28, 2020 at 11:52 AM
And, if we can just get Americans to do more than answer pollsters' questions about the change we need!
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

NOV 5 GT 5.15--5.21 (thru Mending...Earth). McK thru Terry Tempest Williams. Final report presentations begin... NOV 7 GT 5.22 (Hope... What Next?). McK thru Ellen Meloy... NOV 12 MacA Part I-The Long View. McK thru Jack Turner... NOV 14 MacA Part II-Trajectory Changes. McK thru David Quammen... A NOTE ON OUR TEXTS. This is an ambitious reading schedule. Read what you can, prioritizing the texts in descending order: first-listed assignment for each class gets top priority, second gets 2d, and so on... Fall 2024: HONORS BUILDING 116, T/Th 4:20 pm

TEXTS Fall '24

First things first--a proper education

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.” ― Wendell Berry

The college project

“The American college may be considered a continuation, at the human level, of the self-education process of the earth itself: universe education, earth education, and human education are stages of development in a single unbroken process...The entire college project can be seen as that of enabling the student to understand the immense story of the universe and the role of the student in creating the next phase of the story.” --Thomas Berry, “The American College in the Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth

“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

“Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.”
― Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?”
― Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.”
― Martin Keogh, Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World

“When the last tree is cut and the last fish killed, the last river poisoned, then you will see that you can't eat money.”
― John May, The Greenpeace Story

“We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”
― T.S. Eliot

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there.”
― Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

“We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the
single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this
world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the
environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.”
― Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World

“The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.”
― Ivan Illich

	Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) http://michaelpollan.com/
5/14/15, 10:57 AM All the lectures and talks from Edible Education 101 are now online. All told, a great introduction to food politics bit.ly/1Fausvx

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Here's a Little Optimism!

3 comments:

Peripatetics