The Monitor Environmental Forum Blog

A response to “The Monitor Environmental Forum: Initiating a Journalistic Shift” found Vol. 15, Iss. 2, P. 4.

I agree that we, as Americans, live very wasteful lives. At the current moment, I have countless lights and other electronic devices on around my room. I’ve probably thrown away stuff today that I could have recycled. And I know very little about the environmental issues going on today. However, I don’t think it’s because I’m too stupid to understand the issues, or too ego-centric to care about anything larger than the tiny patch of Earth I inhabit. I’m just a product of my socialization, the socialization we’ve all gone through in this country. We’ve all had it ingrained into our heads that every American has the God-given right to live as we choose, and be as wasteful as we care to (and can afford to) be. I often wonder to myself, With so many people in the developed world, most of whom are being at least as irresponsible towards the environment as I am, what do my own actions matter anyway? They should matter though—if not for my own future, then for my kids’, and their kids’, and…well, you get the picture.

Although I’m in no way an environmental scholar (or even that outdoorsy), I do fully agree with you that we need to pay more attention to how our own individual actions detrimentally affect the environment. I also agree with you in the fact that the media should do a better job of relaying important environmental information to the general public. However, the media is a business, and for the most part reports on things people care about. It does present a bit of a catch-22, in that more media coverage of environmental issues would rally up more support for taking better care of the environment, but at the same time more initial concern would be required to spur the media into covering more environmentally-related topics.

Since you also seemed adamant about promoting greater media coverage of environmental topics, I encourage you to lead the way. Inform me, your reader, about the environment. Educate me—don’t belittle me for not already knowing more. Don’t talk over my head. And don’t make me feel like I have to ditch my car, become a vegan and live off of wind power if I want to really care about the environment. Use this environmental forum provide reliable information and reasonable expectations about how someone living in the 21^st century can be well-informed and environmentally responsible.

With respect to your first point, I do not think you or any of us, environmentally aware or not, are stupid.  I hope you as well as your nature writing classmate, Emily Bevington, do not feel that I’m attacking the general public.  We remain largely powerless from, as you say, our socialization in our youth.  Perhaps this is why I write with such provocation and abrasiveness.  I’ve constructed the first article of my column to, in the best way possible through print, forcefully raise awareness and concern.

Also, I’ll be a little more mindful in the future of adapting the forum to those unwilling to adopt veganism or to those incapable of harnessing wind energy.  This forum, after all, is meant to promote change.  I’m just glad I have the attention of a few now.  Thanks for your comments.