Final Blog Post! Thanksgiving Debate...

The environment-themed conversation I had over break was mainly with my uncle, who runs the public works (facility management?) for a town in southern New Jersey. We’ve always butted heads (in an amiable sense of the word) over environmental issues. He would write me off because I was interning at Greenpeace, and therefore, apparently, my opinions are invalid. Anyway, at Thanksgiving, he actually brought up the topic of environmental technology because he was complaining about how his city council voted to put in solar panels on public buildings, and the community is working towards LEED-certifying many public buildings. (He was complaining about the cost). I then put in my input about the holistic approach to development that we read about in Cradle to Cradle without framing it as my opinion, but rather more as just a discussion topic. I found that as soon as I presented the idea of this approach of cradle to cradle products, my uncle and father both immediately agreed with the idea. When I then threw out there that it was for my International Environmental Politics course, my uncle kind of scoffed at it, but I still had an admission.
I moved on from there and talked to him about the problems with LEED certification, because he was clearly not on board with the program. It was really important for him to hear from someone who is working towards LEED certification (through the class here at AU) that it is not a perfect system. This led to an actual dialogue, because he was much more responsive when I talked to him about the environment and problems with initiatives within it, such as LEED problems. I learned that it is much more important to converse with people instead of talking down to them. By the end of the conversation, we had both learned something - he learned about the different solar technology his county was implementing as well as the benefits and downfalls of LEED building. I had learned about all of the hurdles that a city must go through in order to present a new environmental initiative, such as solar panels. I have to give a lot of credit to the individuals who actually go through the work of okay-ing these projects within their cities - it seems very un-democratic and frustrating.
I moved on to talk about the Story of Stuff, mainly because my parents and my cousin are both in the education field. My father was the only one who had heard of it, and he wholeheartedly agreed that the video should be showed in schools. He had worked as superintendent of one school district where the video was widely accepted by teachers, but at his current school district there was a debacle over showing the video, and in the end it was up to individual teachers’ to decide. My mother and uncle did not agree with the general message we conveyed to them. I think it is a matter of upbringing - both of my parents and my uncle worked extremely hard growing up to get to the positions they are in now and enjoy the money they now have (because it wasn’t always there). I think that it’s hard to relate to this because I grew up in a comfortable wealthy middle-class home (because of their dedication) and didn’t experience what they had to work so hard for. It’s hard for me, who seems to have everything, to tell them that they should stop consuming so many goods because of the environment. It seemed almost disrespectful, so I veered off topic to different political actions that they thought were most effective.
Overall, the conversation about Cradle to Cradle resonated most with my family. My father admits that we are continually degrading the environment and our reach is too far into nature to NOT be causing things such as global warming. My uncle was harder to persuade, but he also conceded that we must be causing climate change. It’s hard to debate where I live though; we have an advantage of viewing ocean waters rising. I live on Absecon Island, a barrier island off of South Jersey and the end of our island ends at ‘11th street’ because streets 1-10 are underwater, and used to connect to the island south of us. It’s hard to argue with evidence like this happening over the past century and a half (even though this island should have never been developed in the first place). In the end, the conversation taught me that understanding and listening to someone else’s viewpoint is more important than proving your own point - something that I’ve learned over time working in the environmental field. However, I had never thought to have this conversation with family members because many, such as my brother, seem pretty much unchangeable in their carbon dioxide emitting ways. I’ve tried to talk to my brother about his excessive use of his 1980 Volvo station wagon, his 45 minute showers and obsession to wash every piece of clothing that he wears even for two seconds, but that’s an uphill battle. I found it very interesting that the people who this conversation actually was mutually beneficial with were my parent’s conservative-minded family members. I guess it shows that there are ways that we can effectively converse with climate ‘skeptics’ to address problems with climate change and its widespread consequences.