Response #5

Reading Speth's Red Sky at Morning really hit home for me. As I was reading about poverty, economic growth, and globalization I felt very selfish. I looked around my room and realized how much crap I have. There are very few things in my room that I can say I know where this came from, how it was made, what resources were consumed, and how it's creation affects the environment. I truly care about the environment and do a lot of things to live my life with this in mind, but even so I am still a part of the destruction of the environment. I will guiltily admit that I do enjoy buying things. I love just getting new pens or even just buying a pair of running shoes. The idea of something new and "clean" just makes me feel better. I was trying to figure out why I have this reaction to new things and realized that I am not thinking about the bad associated with it. My new and "clean" object consumed a certain amount of energy, used some source of water, added emissions to the air, and could have polluted a water source. Furthermore, there are millions of people on the other side of the world who are trying to survive let alone buy a pair of running shoes. All of these things seem so far away when I am looking at my soon to be purchase and I can imagine this is the same or most likely worse for a lot of americans. It is even harder to change this because it is such a huge part of the society we live in today. I would say the more you have the more you are respected by people. Of course I disagree with this statement, but this is a very difficult attitude to avoid having in your life. With this in mind how is it possible to get past this attitude? I think the best thing for anyone is to connect with the natural world on a deep level and connect with those in other parts of the world who are less fortunate. If you can see these things and connect with them it might be easier to put the pens down at the store and say there is more to this life. Furthermore, I think it is important to be educated. Understanding what goes into making something could potentially change how one feels about it. Of course this is all on a personal level and consumer changes are most likely going to happen with government policy changes.