ARE WE READY FOR A LOCAL CHANGE?
I’m used to living in the city. I’m used to living among what I consider conveniences – conveniences like going out with my friends to our favorite restaurants, or amusement parks, or movie theatres, or convenience stores. The idea of living in a smaller community that has none of these things is slightly disconcerting because I’m young and life today, everything that is so easy to ‘get’, is all I’ve ever known. Considering the effects of how all these conveniences have affected our planet has never crossed my mind until this assignment and I respect the importance of considering the damage humans have caused to our planet due to our materialistic and superficial mentality.
It’s hard to imagine that dining locally in a smaller community would be much fun and taste better just because it was grown locally within our community. I never wanted to be a farmer. And I prefer my car to a horse or bicycle. I like Taco Bell. I like the mall sometimes and Walmart is amazing. It has everything I need and everything everyone else needs. I like the noise and energy of a Friday night in downtown Miami. If we were to redesign our communities in an attempt to help “heal” our planet so to speak, would we all go back to barn dancing and playing horseshoes? I find the idea absolutely unappealing.
Having said all this, I acknowledge that the age of technology has changed everything. It’s blacked out, not just for many in my generation, but for many who are ignorant to all this in the first place; the realization that our selfishness and carelessness is recreating the face of our planet. And I now understand why McKibben named his book Eaarth. We’ve forgotten the gentile, fragile and sometimes violent planet that our home used to be. Today we think of what it can do for us – not how to treat and respect it.
Today oceans are rising due to glacier melting, there’s both drought and too much rainfall, and the farming communities are becoming like ghost towns – they’re simply becoming unnecessary. And all the while Monsanto has been rising to kingdom. But for a great many of us, catching the latest movie after dinner at Outback Steakhouse is a much larger concern. So is what we wear, what we drive and whether we have the latest technical gadgets. And of course our daily visits to Starbucks can’t go unnoticed. I think most of us think someone else will do something about “it”, but until this becomes a western societal awareness and those who have the power (the money) to really make the big changes there will be no changes.
I think our society is becoming more selfish and unconscious, thinking only about what we want, taking no heed whatsoever to the fact that our home – this planet is a living thing that we are slowly destroying. Harrison Ford just said on TV the