Green Manolo

Last week, I asked whether it was humanity’s moral obligation to go green, and a pretty big majority said yes. In fact, when I ran the question by my fairly conservative father, I was surprised to hear him agree that people need to think of caring for the Earth as a responsibility we all have, not something anyone can do or not do as the mood strikes. There was less agreement when it came to how to handle that moral obligation… should it be left entirely up to the individual and his or her choices? Should the government play a part in caring for the environment through regulation? (RFID recycling bins come to mind…) MarinaS brought up a good point in the comments, saying that lifestyle changes, innovation, regulation, and responsible consumerism should all be a part of going green. I wholeheartedly agree.

I also think, however, that this is where things get complicated for a lot of people who might support environmental stewardship as the responsibility of all people if it didn’t start to get overwhelming when you start expanding the scale of it all. Maybe it’s a tad intimidating – like it’s not enough that I recycle and compost and buy Fair Trade goods, now I have to vote for the right politicians and lobby for certain regulations and figure out how to support green energy when I can’t afford to switch to an electric car or install solar panels on my roof? That’s commitment right there, and I think commitment is difficult for a lot of people.

The good news is that going green is one of those things that’s easy to do on a small scale and feels kind of good when you do it, so people who start out doing a few things that are good for the environment end up doing a few more things and then a few more things. And when you’re suddenly living in a pretty environmentally conscious way, suddenly it doesn’t seem like so much work to suss out those politicians who support green legislation or to drive less and bike more and find ways to use less electricity. So while I think we should all be pursuing a greener world via as many avenues as possible, I’m totally okay with the idea that some people are taking green baby steps with short-term feel-good returns since those baby steps can lead a person in the direction of more knowledge and a greater level of commitment.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 5:32 am by Christa and is filed under Green Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.