Vice, which is probably most famous for the homonymous magazine, also produces its own series these days, including Toxic, a look into the worst consequences of industrial pollution. The company draws a lot of fire for being too "awesome" for its own good and the show tends toward detached doomsaying, but both still bring much warranted attention to these issues.
So far the show has shown me how corruption is hampering waste disposal in southern Italy, how the oil sand industry is transforming Alberta and given me a closer glimpse into what's playing out in the Pacific Garbage Patch, but it covers several other themes, such as the gulf oil spill. The few episodes I have watched have elucidated some lessons for me as regards the sustainability movement.
Biting the hand that feeds you
It's no secret that people go where the money is. At the same time, they may not necessarily agree with the work they're performing. In fact, many of those who work in the most environmentally destructive industries are poignantly aware of the repercussions of their actions. It's a situation where individual interests - the need to make a living - diverge from the common interest of preserving our resource base. That doesn't always have to be the case - I don't know that society could exist if it were - but for many individuals there are few other choices.
When promoting sustainability and many other initiatives it's important to take into account the consideration that conscientiously objecting is often a luxury. However, while portions of the population have no choice but to participate in activities they regard as destructive, there are opportunities to make up for them in other realms. The need for employment has significant implications for personal responsibility in one's capacity as a consumer and elsewhere in society.
That certain industries rely on the desperation of hires or inflated salaries to staff operations also makes a strong case for gradualism. The motive behind my interest in sustainability is to improve the quality of people's lives. That would hardly be attained by snuffing out petroleum and other industries overnight. There is currently a trade-off between material security and environmental health in the short-term for considerable sections of society. It doesn't have to stay that way, but it will as long as sufficient incentives are not in place to get the ball rolling toward an alternative equilibrium.
Instead of milking unsustainable industries for every last drop, whether that behavior's spurred by renumeration or mere inertia, professionals should be given the incentive to shift their skills and other investments to different areas. As those incentives come from the market, that will not happen until we exercise more responsibility as consumers and citizens. That process starts with the simplest of choices: what will I eat today?
What will I consume?
As things currently stand you won't be able to find a green version of every product you need or would like, but some are clearly better than others. The obvious choice is the one that uses less packaging, or the one that was produced in a closer location. While the World Wildlife Fund continues to make headway in its project to work with major companies and thus establish sustainability standards for industries from the top down, making informed choice from the other end is one of the greatest outlets for progress on this issue that we can exercise.
I spoke with my sister the other day about gas prices and told her that she shouldn't expect them to get lower. It's supply and demand, I explained. There's less of a resource to go around as more and more people desire it. Since the likelihood of discovering new oil deposits substantially large enough to offset that demand is extremely low, it's only a matter of time before prices rise enough so as to make production financially impossible. Before that day comes though, but for the wealthiest people, that trend will make many of today's lifestyles financially impossible.
I predictably suggested that, in light of its other undesirable side effects, people should start limiting their use of gasoline. For her that would mean not going to work or relocating, neither of which are very feasible. People typically can't move on a whim and centralized cities don't sprout up in any short amount of time either.
Yet these practical constraints as they are inherent to any grassroots movement give industry time to restructure without disenfranchising too many people. But that change will only come about with the right encouragement and at the end of the day it necessitates conscious effort. Perhaps you can't move or giving up driving would be professional suicide for now, but you can send the message in other ways. Don't buy the styrofoam or plastic container produced from petroleum. Tell the business world oil's no longer as profitable as it once was.
In addressing individual incentives to purchase more responsibly there's a great role for the informal sector to play. It's often family and friends or considerations regarding them that keep us in line. These communities play a critical role in keeping us on track and the consequences of living without them are all too evident. It is a sense of connection and the resulting trust that keeps some societies more free of crime and other social ills than others.
Fashion forward
Unfortunately for citizens of the USA in this respect, it has become very easy to selectively pick out who to associate with, isolate yourself and generally avoid pressure from others to change. This typically manifests itself in individuals surrounded by people with the same views. I guess this might be one manifestation of freedom, but it's self-defeating when it divides society and threatens to shut down government.
To make up for a lack of social cohesion in our society, status symbols have grown in importance. In a world where you know no one, superficial identification has become critical. In some ways it helps to reinforce the divisive phenomena already in play, but on other occasions it can and has lent itself to ameliorating issues.
Despite the best efforts of tobacco companies, for instance, smoking in the most public of places has become so stigmatized as to be shameful. There are certain settings where cigarettes remain a symbol of membership in an inner circle (see Vice), but in general they're on the decline thanks to conscious efforts to make them unfashionable. The easiest way to accomplish that is to forge an association between the product or behavior you're targeting and low class or inferiority.
It would be foolish to think that uprooting our society in the name of sustainability would achieve the desired effect, as the attempt to privatize Russia overnight all too clearly illustrates. Society is a "smart" organization and the only organization we've got, but it still has a learning curve. Momentum toward a more sustainable industrial ecology will have to be graduated for that reason and garnered through existing avenues of influence.
At the same time, gradualism has been invoked to keep things from changing at all. In keeping with the theme, this is the rationale by which dictators have propped themselves up in Uzbekistan and other formerly Soviet nations. However, if people don't start implementing changes in their daily lives, shocks might come - not from top-down - but from outside. And nature has no regard for how long it takes us to adapt.
No comments:
Post a Comment