As people know, I’m all about the whole “environmental action, not environmental guilt” thing. All the time, however, I realize how hard it is to make this a reality. For instance, I just posted a comment on Colin’s blog entry where he talks about global warming. In the comment I said something along the lines of “If you already do some of these things, give yourself a pat on the back and feel good.” At the time, I thought it was an innocuous comment, but now I think people could easily hear a remark like that as having the add on “and if you aren’t doing these things, you are bad, bad bad!” So there’s an example of how even a comment that is, on the face of it, positive might cause that unwanted guilt.
The reason I am so obsessed with not making people feel guilty is that I strongly believe that guilty feelings actually lead people to NOT taking environmental action. In other words, I think making people feel guilty might actually be bad for the environment. When people feel guilty, they feel overwhelmed, so they don’t do anything at all, except feel like crap.
I think one of the things that compounds this situation is that whenever there’s a list of ‘things you can do to help x’, people feel that they should be doing those things or they are bad. And the lists themselves don’t help with this since they are filled with the dire consequences of what will happen if you don’t do the things. But then people get inundated with 20 different lists, all telling them to do 20 different things, and then they think that they have to change their whole life in order to make environmental action worth while. And then they do nothing instead.
I want people to get to the place of picking a particular aspect of the environment that is important and meaningful to them, and then not getting drawn a-stray when 20 other lists for 20 other environmental issues appear. So I think the people who are producing the lists need to take some responsibility for this by not trying to freak people out all the time and recognize that different people have different environmental priorities.
So now, with that in mind, let me rephrase my comment from Colin’s climate change entry:
Is keeping our climate cool and stable a priority for you? If so, there are a number of actions that you can take to contribute to the stability of our climate. If you already do some of these things, congratulations. You are contributing to the stability of our climate.
-Turning out lights, using energy efficient bulbs
-Turning heat down in the winter and air conditioning up in the summer.
-Keeping your house energy-efficient by eliminating drafts
-Investing in a carbon exchange program, like
terrapass
-Walking or biking short distances
-car-pooling
-taking public transit
-
choosing alternative transportation methods over airplane travel
-planting trees or creating or maintaining other green spaces (lawns, gardens, etc.)
-preserving existing green spaces by using recycled paper and buying wood
products from responsibly managed woodlots.
posted at 13:38 on Wed, 18 Jan, 2006 |
path: /living
All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.