Activate me

I was recently told by a very good friend that I am not a feather, but instead a boulder. (If you're confused about this statement, please read my last post.) My actions do have an effect, she says, even if indirectly. But does this mean I should be taking more strides to do something about current environmental issues. If I alone have the power to affect change, am I a hypocrite for talking about it and not doing anything drastic?

Should I completely give up my car and ride my bike everywhere? Should I only buy local and organic food sold at the city market? Do I need to go to the extremes? ..I don't want to go to extremes. Is that selfish? I'm not sure exactly, but here is an example to help illustrate my point:

In the book for my class, Wilderness and the American Mind by Nash, he discusses the dichotmy of wilderness and humans. In the end of the book, he concludes that humans are intrinsicly separate from nature, or rather, that our population has outgrown nature. I have a hard time following this line of thought. He uses this argument to say that human civilizations should be small islands amongst all the wild lands of the planet and should build their civilizations up and not out. This seems very extreme to me. Why should humans have to sequester themselves from the rest of the bio-community? Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for restraining our destructive tendancies and containing urban sprawl, but Nash's idea gives me an image of human civilizations floating above the planet. This just strikes me as a really dramatic solution. Sort of like a cosmic mother saying, "If humans can't play nice, then they can't play at all" and punishing the population by forcing it to live in little islands of life in the air. That would be like saying, this fish has eaten all the other types of fish, lets put them all in aquariums so they can't harm anymore fish. Sounds ridiculous to me.

Maybe I am just overly optimistic, but I thatthat life on Earth wouldn't remain unbalanced for very long. Eventually the fish population will even out, even if that means one fish replaces another. I also believe that humans will either figure out a way to continue our civilization into the future by living sustainbly in the environment or die off because of lack of resources. I guess that doesn't sound particularly optimistic. That idea I borrow from Thomas Malthus, who I always thought was cleverly pessimistic in regard to the future of our civilization.

Nordhouse Dunes, A Wilderness area in Michigan.

So, back to my point. Segregating the human population from the very planet that sustains them seems very extreme to me and on a much, much smaller scale, changing my life completely also seems extreme. I don't think us humans are all that bad. A lot of us are careless and destructive, but we have obviously made some significant strides in wilderness protection. (Read some of Nash to learn more about this!) And more will come, I am sure. I will be one of the first to vote in higher standard of fuel efficiency or what evey technology savvy vehicle is invented in the next 50 years. But I am not going to give up my car completely (unless that solar-energy floating car comes out - that I would totally go for!). As Henry David Thoreau believed, it is best to have one foot in civilization and one in the wild. It is important for us to appreciate the wild, but we should also appreciate all the amazing things we have done within our own civilization. As members of Earth we are part of the larger biotic community and the smaller human community. Both are important. So, no, I will not become an activist. I will do all that I can without giving up my current life completely, and those little things I do can still have an effect.

...I am going to Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity, though. Does that count as activism? :)

The effect of one

Do you ever think about how tiny and infinitesimal you are? My entire life has consisted of Mid-Western Michigan, with a few forays out into the world. While in the midst of a busy day, it is so easy to get caught up in my life and imagine that everything I do has the utmost importance. I have to do this, I have to do that. I make it sound like if I don't do it, everything will come to a screeching halt. But the truth is, only a few people will even notice. My roommates will, because I chatter to them about everything, repeatedly (their patience is amazing). The professor or my boss (or whoever) will notice. My family will know. And that's it. Nobody outside of this tiny little circle in the middle of Michigan will ever know my life was upended (by good or bad circumstances). The things I do have such a small effect on the whole. I suppose it is something like ripples in a lake. Throwing a big rock in the lake will cause ripples to form and disturb everything on the surface, but I am more like a leaf. Or a feather. My life causes some disruption in others in the immediate vicinity, but nobody on the other side of the lake will ever know.


One of my very best friends (shout-out to Shelly!) is studying abroad right now in Belize and she keeps a bunch of people updated on all of her adventures, which are numerous. Reading her emails reminds me of exactly how huge this planet is and how many tiny little feathers are out there causing the tiniest of ripples in their own lakes. Nobody down there will know about my accomplishments and failures.


And then, think even bigger and you realize how all of these people on the whole planet are only a tiny speck of dust on the surface of one humongous lake in the enormity of space.

So my question for today is, do any of my sustainable efforts even matter? In the scheme of things, will changing all of my lightbulbs reduce energy usage in America? Will driving less and biking more reduce the carbon outputs into the atmosphere? Probably not. Nobody except me (and you, the faithful reader) will ever know I did anything. Why should I even try then? Well, for one, because I want to. Because it makes me feel like I am helping, even if my help matters not at all. But also, because I am an optimist. I believe that all around are tiny little feathers on the surface of my metaphorical lake doing their best to help out. And maybe changing one light bulb doesn't matter, but if a lot of people change their one light bulb then maybe we can push out that ripple of change just a little bit farther.

My daily commute

I have to say, I love my car. Not the strange kind of love that some people have, where they freak out if the body is scratched. I just simply like it. It is the first car I purchased on my own and it is the size of a boat. My 17-year-old Pontiac Bonneville has a nose about 30 feet long and could take on just about any whimpy car you can think of. I named it Maurice, or Mo for short.

Now, I don't drive an awful lot. I am a student after all. Any MSU student who thinks driving on to campus will save them time is either nuts or lives way off campus. But I do drive to work, to the store and to other various after-class activities. Oh, and sometimes I drive to my night class because parking is free and it is dark when the class ends at 9pm. I wouldn't say I am a driving lunatic, but I have to wonder, can I cut down my commuting time?  Google Maps tells me that it will take 30 minutes to bike from my apartment to my office. Now, I have inspected the route and half of it is without bike paths and crosswalks. I am pretty sure I am not a skilled enough biker to battle with SUVs and minivans on Hagadorn Road. So, biking to work is out. Plus, I don't actually have enough time scheduled in between classes and work to make the trek and still have time for lunch and a change of clothes.

But I am going to make a more concentrated effort to bike elsewhere. Despite the fact that is is getting cold out. I can't promise I will bike in the dead of winter. I value my life and limbs too much to risk biking around campus on ice while dodging pedestrians and other bikers. But I will try to bike everywhere feasible, I think. Even my 6pm class (parking is free after 6, so I am guilty of driving into campus for that class ...). I'll have to let you know how this new effort goes!