What is the Underlying Cause of the Environmental Crisis?
Quinn tells us the underlying causes of the environmental crisis are based primarily on the spread of monotheistic, salvationist religions and the associated totalitarian form of agriculture. Ryan says, basically, it's our over-consumption of conveniences, from our morning coffee to our reliance on the computer, and how it impacts our world as a whole. In my opinion, the state of the earth has no single cause or even a few underlying causes; the environmental crisis is much more complex and cannot be pinpointed so easily.
Based on the readings and class discussions so far, I am beginning to see how my lifestyle is one of those causes. I've always prided myself on living comparatively simply, but although I recycle and drive my car (second-hand, but a gasaholic) as little as possible, my overall ignorance (ignore-ance) of the environmental impacts of every-day living is, I'm afraid, astounding. Even after reading about it over the past few weeks, here I sit with my morning coffee tippy-tapping on my personal computer! My only consolation is that the breakfast I ate consisted of home-made bread rather than store-bought (but even that I nuked in my microwave oven so the home-made honey butter would melt), and when I'm finished writing this paper I will, as usual, turn my computer off rather than allow the "energy-saving" features to take over.
The underlying causes of the environmental crisis are based on the fact that our world is a complex web of life and humankind has the audacity to think it is the most important strand. Some human beings are more ignore-ant than others; many are simply ignorant. Relatively few are truly aware, ready and willing to make a difference. It takes all three factors - awareness, readiness AND willingness - for any real changes to occur.
It takes education, on a global scale, to change the perceptions of the masses and eradicate ignorance, but knowledge of The Problem is not enough. As I read about the sweatshops in Honduras and other places around the world where workers slave to produce the goods we Americans consume, I thought of how those people most likely are not aware of the severity of their working conditions; to them, it's a paycheck when others are living without. Are these workers ready and willing to give up their only source of income in order to save topsoil in America? With poverty on one end, there's greed on the other - are the companies that profit from pillaging the earth ready and willing to make changes that help the environment but negatively affect the bottom line? I'm afraid the answer is "no" on both counts...people are simply too shortsighted to see that what's good for the earth is ultimately what's good for them as well.
Just as educating the masses will do little to change the minds of the very poor and the very rich, neither is Western culture ready or willing to give up on what Quinn sees as the root cause: an ingrained belief system that allows us to remain ignore-ant without a guilty conscience, indeed reinforcing the righteousness of maintaining the status quo. If environmental education runs counter to the dominant beliefs of the student, he may expand his knowledge but he will not accept it as absolute truth. Again, awareness of The Problem without a willingness to make even subtle changes in lifestyle does not have much of a positive effect on the environmental crisis.
If educating the masses will not affect a positive outcome for the earth, would educating a few world leaders do it? Can the United Nations take a course on Nature and Values, read Quinn and Ryan, decide what's right and good for the earth - and then force the rest of the world to comply? I seriously doubt it - as I said, the environmental crisis is much more complex than that. Forcing the masses to be more environmentally pro-active would only result in World War III and a final destruction of the earth as we know it. Even though most people accept forms of government in which the elite make most of the decisions that affect the masses, such a complete and sudden overturning of basic belief systems would not be tolerated. We are territorial beasts, unwilling to make any sacrifices that do not immediately reward us.
I've discussed "awareness" and "willingness" - what about "readiness"? In my own experience, I have been somewhat knowledgeable and very willing for many years...but readiness has been lacking. Our society makes it too difficult for the average person to do much in the way of making real lifestyle changes. For example, unless you can afford to build your own home, you are stuck with inefficient heating systems and poor water sources. Sources of income are centralized miles away from property zoned "residential," forcing the average worker to commute long distances. Residential property is rarely conducive to growing your own food. Even natural food stores carry more and more overly processed foods, disguised with expensive printed labels that claim the food to be "organic." Convenience, it seems, overrules even the best of intentions.
A gradual education of the masses and growing readiness and willingness to make positive changes is underway and has been for many years. If there is one underlying cause of the environmental crisis, it is that the rate of destruction out-paces this gradual change, and yet, gradual change is the only effective change. When an overweight person tries to adopt a healthier lifestyle, crash-dieting does more harm than good. The yo-yo effect on the human metabolism mirrors the same in a global view: putting the world on a diet of nuts and berries without gradually weaning it from meat and potatoes results in midnight raids on the refrigerator and an uncontrollable craving for milk and cookies, too. The knowledge that a healthier lifestyle will result in a slimmer body does little to help the person unwilling to accept gradual change achieve permanent results.
