Environmentally-Friendly

As way of reintroduction, I’ll focus on how I became involved in studying the environment. Freshman year in college (I’m now a senior) I read a book called “The Cyanide Canary” about a boy who got stuck in a cylindrical tank and ended up becoming a vegetable because of prolonged exposure to cyanide. This was a result of unsafe construction practices by the contractor, and led to the first case in which an individual was put in jail for environmental crimes. My college writing teacher then brought in one of the attorneys who worked on the case, who was actually her husband, and through talking to him I realized that working in the environmental field seemed to be right for me. I then pursued internships and changed my major. The two most defining areas that I worked in were grassroots organizing with Greenpeace (last semester) and with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DOE) in Washington State over summer. These two extremely different experiences provided me with a foundation to figure out which ‘side’ to work on in the environment. Greenpeace was a lot of work – grassroots organizing isn’t easy, and everything about working for Greenpeace ties back to the article we just read for these discussion questions. Nothing was easy, I stuck out because I was not a vegetarian or vegan, and I ended up forming a strong divergence from my supervisor over the best way to bring about environmental change. She believed in civil disobedience, whereas I felt the best way to act was through policy, law and raising awareness (which Greenpeace does, as well). You might remember when the Senate’s coal-fired power plant was shut down (or in the process of being shut down) last spring. Greenpeace had staged a huge rally with other environmental NGOs, speaker such as Bill McKibben, and the intent to get arrested. However, the government shut down the pl ant the night before this rally, saving me the trouble of disagreeing, yet again, with my supervisor on the topic of getting arrested. In order to get a ‘full experience’ of Greenpeace, I was recommended to get arrested, something that I did not want on my record and did not have time for (I was still in school!). This made me realize that this end of the environmental movement was not for me, and I submitted my application to work for the Department of Energy.

Through the DOE internship, I gained invaluable experiences in networking, research and insight into the way real scientists think and get exposure. I realized that a lot of the reasons why scientists are not able to adequately present their research is through restraints in ‘the system.’ Everything at the DOE was, understandably, on lockdown. Besides the fact that the nuclear bombs dropped in Japan during World War II were developed at the Hanford site outside of this particular lab (the reactors are now not in use), I could see no other reason for the lack of informational spread from the lab to the surrounding community. I realized, once again, that this particular type of work was more for me, but I needed a medium in which to express my research. I had conducted extensive research on the economic viability of developing an industry for algae biofuels, and ran into dead ends in various areas of the lab. I would have thought that others working in the same area would want to held and input from another team, but this didn’t seem to be the case. The lack of sharing information within the laboratory’s walls seems to be the key problem in my mind. I came into this class hoping to be exposed to different types of organizations that work cohesively within their own foundation, as well as with other organizations. International Environmental Politics is a phrase that covers both ends of the spectrum, from grassroots organizations that lobby governments and try to influence politics, to organizations that make up the government and feed information to make policy. I came to this class to gain a broader understanding of the relationships in global environmental politics, and examine how effective (or ineffective) and how these politics have evolved. I hope to contribute from my experiences working in various areas of the environmental field, and maybe a little bit more of a science side to the debate.

Stanley Fish’s article was effectively written, and seems to have the ability to connect to each environmentally-conscious individual (or ‘environmentalist,’ depending on how you want to classify yourself) to some degree. Whether it applies to you specifically when you occasionally become annoyed with the environmental safeguards you practice yourself (some of which aren’t as easy to continually do, such as biking to work every day, including winter) or the reactions of those around you who inevitably feel pressured by how environmentally aware you are, this article rings true to most of the environmentally-conscious individuals. I think it is important to acknowledge the problems that come with living sustainably. As a college student, and I’m sure others would agree, it’s hard to go into your house or apartment, take out all of the light bulbs and replace them with ‘environmentally-friendly light bulbs,’ when the cost is double or triple the amount you would have spent on normal light bulbs. In addition to the cost, there are also new reports coming out about how compact fluorescent light bulbs can actually be bad for the environment! Where do we store them when they’re broken or need to be replaced? Also, as a college student (I’m assuming here that many college students don’t have excess money laying around) how is it justifiable to yourself to go into Superfresh, see a pint of strawberries for $1.99, then see a pint of ‘local organic’ strawberries for $4.99 and spend an extra three dollars on that? If you practiced this for all of the food or produce you bought, you’d be broke before the semester was halfway over.

On the other hand, I think that Stanley Fish’s article negatively reflects a lot of viewpoints about the environment that individuals have in the United States. People assume that since there are still trees growing in their backyard, there is still fresh water, the temperature still goes into the 40’s in winter, and there are still large cars on the market, that we can ignore the changes happening in our environment. In my experience, many Americans find it difficult to look beyond their own backyards to see environmental change and degradation. Fish acknowledges his desire to just ‘live comfortably’ which is what many Americans feel and focus on when making environmentally unsound choices – themselves. Looking at the eco-footprint assignment, it is clear that it is hard to live “environmentally friendly” in the United States. It is ingrained into our culture to have bigger, better, faster everything, and this needs to change in order to reduce our impact on the environment. I considered myself environmentally aware and sustainable, but through the eco footprint quiz, I came up with the result that if everyone lived as I did, we would need 3.9 Earth’s. I think that living ‘environmentally friendly’ in the United States means traveling less, using smaller, more efficient cars, buying locally in a joint effort to bring down prices and make food generally safer, and raising awareness. The main problem in the United States is the viewpoint that we are not going to be affected by the degradation to our environment because we have money. This is clearly not true to many individuals, and this awareness needs to be fostered and spread.