Letters to the Editor
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That kind of rhetoric is a mistake...
The "you can't be an environmentalist if you do x" statements that die-hards make are just going to alienate people who want to do something but lack the time, money and energy to ride their bike everywhere to find all the vegan, organic, earth-friendly products they need to live their lives. We're never going to get anything done to help the planet if environmentalism is limited to hard-core extremists. It needs to be an inclusive movement that invites people to make realistic and gradual steps; you're not going to get people to change overnight, and you definitely won't accomplish that by being a jerk.
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Reducing Meat & Reducing Oil
If you suggest reducing our consumption of oil (in favor of renewable energy like solar and wind) you’re instantly inundated with comments from the Right wing explaining that to modify our lifestyles in any way, shape or form is not only technologically impossible but also the worst kind of authoritarianism!
“How dare those liberal egg heads in New York suggest that I can’t own 5 Hummers! They all want us to live in caves with no electricity whatsoever!”
(sigh)
Poor Al Gore suggested that maybe it’s not the best idea to be 100 percent dependent on foreign oil from 5 Muslim countries that have all sworn blood oaths to destroy us – and maybe it’s not particularly healthy to have coal fired power plants either. A lot of people living near one seem to get cancer. So he (quite reasonably) suggests we should promote energy efficiency (to reduce the amount of energy we consumer) and promote building our own cleaner, more stable, more environmentally friendly energy plants like a wind farm or a solar plant.
Al Gore is the most hated person in right wing circles.
Now we turn to our totally unsustainable meat and fish production and consumption. It’s painfully obvious that we basically can’t sustain this level of meat production (forget about just being inhumane for the cows – it’s environmentally unsustainable. The amount of disease in the meat, the inability to properly feed the cows, the inability to actually inspect and monitor the cows/pigs/chickens, the inability to dispose of the massive amounts of waste, etc) – and yet the sensible call to scale back on our meat and fish consumption is met with the (IMHO) same hysterical reactions that AL Gore gets.
“These people want to control how we live! They want us to live in caves! They will never stop until we’re living in the dirt like savages!”
We should just give up.
We’ve been trying to out-shout these people for the last decade and we just can’t beat them.
They will succeed in keeping things exactly as they are now until the whole thing collapses --- and then try to blame everyone but themselves. And when the end comes we really will be living like savages,
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Re: Being A Jerk Is Counter-Productive
It needs to be an inclusive movement that invites people to make realistic and gradual steps; you're not going to get people to change overnight, and you definitely won't accomplish that by being a jerk.
I would have to disagree with that and point the the MASSIVE success of the Conservatives in America who have soundly defeated any and all opposition -- not by logical arguements but by simply out screaming and attacking everyone.
Who could resonably be opposed to being more energy efficent as a country?
And yet we aren't simply because the Republicans have screamed the loudest and called anyone who dared to suggest such a thing every dirty name in the book.
Under that kind of verbal assualt most have just given up and left the field. The Republicans win, basically, by default because no one (no sane person, anyway) wants to try to match them in their attacks.
Take any environmental issue and it's not great scholarship that is winning the debate for the Conservatives who oppose any and all forms of regulations -- it's just that most people just give up under the constant assualt these people like Limbaugh and O'Reily level.
So, I would disagree with you that being rude or being a jerk isn't effective.
It has not only won the White House but basically won every single battle the Republicans have ever fought.
Being a jerk seems to the formula for success -- so we can't really blame PETA for adopting what appears to be a winning formula.
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Abstinence only
Abstinence only doesn’t just fail in sex ed. It fails the overpopulation argument too.
While it’s easy enough to see the merits of the overpopulation argument, it ignores the basic human fact that a lot of folks want to have kids. Instead of arguing with those who have kids -- overpopulation concerns may be better addressed by first helping people who don’t want children or any more children not have them achieve that goal.
Help make access to birth control a basic human right – even for minors and people who cannot afford to pay for it. Support sex education – the real kind – not abstinence only. Support Planned Parenthood. Vote to keep abortion safe and legal. Support efforts in developing nations to provide birth control to everyone who wants it.
Invest in programs that support women who want to start their own businesses in countries where they have few options or rights. Lifting women up financially can help sever the tie between their societal value and the number of children they produce.
Get involved in programs that educate women that they do have rights and choices involving reproduction. Support reform efforts within religious groups that allow for birth control without threatening one’s eternal fate.
Help make sure that adoption is financially feasible for people who do want to parent.
While deciding not to have children yourself helps a little, helping to address the thousands of children born to the unwilling or unprepared could do so much more. Allow for other people’s religious and societal values and see if there is some way to work within them to help them see the value in having fewer children. Show people through your actions that childfree living is practiced by kind and thoughtful people.
Attacking people who want a couple of kids doesn’t do much to address the problem at hand. If overpopulation concerns are to ever reach the people that most need to hear them, it will be through a message of respect and tolerance.