It's still 'easy does it' with this article...

I enjoyed Michael Maniates article, "Going Green? Easy Doesn't Do It" on the surface level. As a believer in the issue, I agree with his 'call to arms,' but I'm not sure if this article is at all practical. The article is a plea: lets stop hesitating with the baby steps and get on with it! I too want people to stop yakking and start doing. After all, as Maniates points out, this is a serious problem just like any war or issue we have faced in the past and we should look to history to learn our lesson and get inspired. However, as much as I wish this attitude change could be so simple, his logic is perhaps too Utopian. Maniates does not take into account that unfortunately, not everyone feels the way that he does and not everyone believes that there is even a problem; he is treating climate change and the environmental crisis as 'a truth universally acknowledged' (to borrow from Jane Austen!!) when it actually isn't for some. And even if they do believe, perhaps our leaders aren't as Maniates writes, "too timid" or "afraid to discuss" these problems but rather simply don't think the problem is important. One of the major issues we're facing is that we're all so scattered in our beliefs about climate change to begin with. Also, (sadly) political differences aren't going to get out of the way of the issue and that is definitely a huge hindrance in this argument that calls for quick and immediate action. Moreover, even if Americans do accomplish great things when "struggling together" behind an issue, people usually won't band together until something drastic happens and they are forced to do so. For example, it took Pearl Harbor to get Roosevelt and the U.S. to jump into to World War II, and it was a series of ridiculous (and more importantly, tangible) taxes and the actual presence of British soldiers that finally made the colonists truly begin a war against King George III. As much as I firmly believe that an issue that deals with our planet (our home!) should never get hung up behind petty politics it unfortunately does.
I do love how Maniates is challenging the mainstream environmental movement with this article (because yes, what does a gaggle of celebrities really have to do with anything?). Certainly these current efforts to glamorize the movement almost hurt rather then help by making it seem less like the crisis that it is and more like another L.A fad. However, I'm not sure if the problem is that the issue is being dumbed down or rather if for most, it's just personally not an important one. Yes, what we're being asked to do is certainly not enough, but I think that even Maniates makes the solution seem too easy.