Environmental Guilt And The Confessional Road To Rectification
In light of the ‘failure’ of the recent COP15 summit, there can perhaps be no more apt time to reflect on the value of the individual in the struggle towards an environmentally sound future. Political finger-pointing was indeed rife, but shed an ironic light on many people’s frustrations as the negotiations came to a close: many readers’ comments in the major papers seemed to have believed that our politicians were to become fairy godmothers on this one, and after a successful day’s banter, pollution and climate change would be solved. To be hyper-critical or sarcastic is not my aim here; in terms of what was promised, COP15 was a shambles. But most of us can turn criticism closer to home and be more effective with it too.
As car advertisements and even multi-million dollar corporations such as BP switch to the pleasant rusticity of a ‘green’ image, it is becoming more and more important (and difficult) for us to distinguish between which consumer choices we make are in fact environmentally friendly, and which are simply riding the band-wagon. It is pretty hard not to offend at least someone with our lifestyle choices.
Self-reliance and common sense are really the only ways to deal with this problem. Difficult as it may be for environmental veterans to tolerate our confusion, we would ideally be living already in a society where admitting a lack of ‘green’ competence wouldn’t earn you the rank of a leper. Honesty is really the only policy for environmental change on a large scale, and that means skeletons coming from closets every now and again.
Seeming to be saying the right thing is the method of the sly. The technique of advertising cars in recent years has become particularly oblique and therefore good at doing this. Advertising the brand’s funded environmental research unit is often a good tactic. But this does not make the petrol car that we buy any more environmentally-friendly in itself. Despite the average car speed in Manchester city centre of just 6mph, the roads are never short of their glut of brand new shiny petrol powered cars. Trains to Manchester are by no means scarce, but perhaps we have come to ‘buy’ our right to drive with the little we pay for ‘offsetting’, buying away our guilt.
Maybe environmental pressures require us to learn a whole new set of ethics we were never taught in school. Understanding fuel and power, and how to determine when is legitimate for us to use them. Learning about where our recycling goes to and what exactly is done with it, and where our non-recyclable waste ends up. These, also, would take someone to admit their ignorance but it seems that the only way we might go about really changing the way we treat our environment is first not to fear our being in the wrong. We are all in the wrong, but there are some who will have the strength to aim to correct their ways.
Writing articles helping consumers make the most out public transport, for example how your day-to-day life can be made more environmentally friendly by using Trains to Manchester
Article Source
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
<
