Trinity of Despair

I thought Professor Maniates “trinity of despair” was a great modern way to describe the current environmental problems. I believe we were in need of a sort of updated way to describe what was going on and why the environmental degradation was happening at such a rapid pace. The Human Nature component is definitely something to think about because in my opinion it is one of the main reasons our world is in trouble. People are very self centered; it is a part of human nature. It is not necessarily always a bad thing; it is innate to the human being. But it does cause a huge problem when it comes to trying to solve ecological dilemmas. If the way to stop the causes of pollution and climate change is a different lifestyle for the population, then that’s what should happen. It is not that simple though because people are so reluctant and some refuse to change their lifestyle when the harm is not happening to them at the moment. This is precisely what Maniates is talking about in the first part of his trinity and I think it is the most important problem to call attention to. It may be virtually impossible to get everyone on the “save the environment” boat, but if you bring attention to the human flaw of selfishness, this may cause people to change their ways.
The second part of the trinity, the Easy Stuff, is a great way to exemplify the Green Movement that seems to happen right now. It is when companies advertise their products or services to the general population and use “being green” as a marketing ploy to suck them in and have the consumer think they are doing something good by buying this product. There is a flaw in this entire chain of thinking because consumerism is one of the main causes of the environmental problem. The easy part comes in because a lot of people may not have the knowledge or resources to truly become a green and environmentally friendly person, but they do want to join in the efforts. What corporations do is give them this answer by putting out products that, if you buy them, will make you green! This is a very flawed way in thinking, but consumers go for it because it is the easy way out.

The third part of the trinity is the one that I am very skeptical about. Maniates says that a problem is that people think we ALL have to get on board in order for something to happen, but he argues this is not the case. He states that if only a few small, but key groups start to try and make a change in the world, the change will come. Although his arguments for this are strong, I still do think that everyone needs to do their part. It is amazing how one person or a handful of people can make a huge negative impact on the environment given the right set of materials. So I think in order for a significant change to really happen, we do actually need a huge majority of the population to get on board.
Overall I think Maniates has great points and speaks many truths about the reasons for our environmental concerns today, and I think his “trinity of despair” is like the modern day IPAT equation and I hope more people pay attention to it because a call to action is what we really need at this point in time.