Conservation

As we were pulling out of the driveway this morning, I noticed a pickup truck in the road towing a flatbed trailer with a four-wheeler on it. This struck me as emblematic of what’s wrong with the conservation movement. Although it is true that individual people need to cut their usage of petroleum and other unnecessary energy, it is important to note that the operative word there is “unnecessary”. The expenditure of energy is, in and of itself, unavoidable, and necessary. It’s the idea that anything that is beneficial is therefore necessary that has to change. While it is true that it is valid to want to have a comfortable life, using a gas-powered lawnmower or driving an SUV is not. To be sure, we may save time by not mowing the lawn by hand or feel safer in an SUV. But this approach fails to weight the consequences of our actions outside the context of our own lives. So the real issue is self- and macro-awareness. Are we conscious of how we impact others? What we really need is more education; if children were aware of these issue throughout their early education, and knew about ways they could impact the global issue of conservation of resources, they would be more equipped to make smart choices later in life.

Like many other things, climate change and global awareness are not problems that can be solved in an isolated fashion. They came about for specific reasons, and they won’t go away until we address the root issues. Better education is an important start to this, but it is only a start, and it must be looked at in the context of the whole problem.