One afternoon at the Sheraton Conference center in Wakefield, MA, running on a treadmill next to twenty or so other young professionals getting in their day’s activity, I was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the productivity level of all of these bodies spinning machines with fancy lighted displays showing how many calories have been burned or how many virtual miles have been traveled. How was it that this required electricity rather than generated it? This seemed particularly poignant as I was at a meeting for the Ocean Conservancy, where I am now working to protect the ocean environment from the effects of humankind, one of which is the enormous amount of resources we consume every day.
It is inspiring to be part of an organization so dedicated to conservation and actually making a difference in bringing about new legislation and protections for the marine environment. The environmental movement is much more advanced in this country than in Italy where organizations such as the National Park of the La Maddalena Archipelago, ostensibly designed to protect the area, are mere facades of conservation rather than actually doing much to conserve anything. In fact, the environmental movement was born in the US as a part of the country’s heritage and appreciation of the seemingly boundless resources here. The first national park, Yellowstone, was designated in 1872 in order to protect a piece of nature for all to enjoy in the future, thus putting a distinct value on nature as a necessary source of happiness for Americans. There is a recognition of the inherent value of nature and the landscape, which is also expressed as part of the - to have a piece of its land for yourself, a kind of natural oasis of privacy from the rest of the world.
But, as I was watching all of this vigorous activity vaporize into the moist gym-air against the backdrop of flashing electronic panels, using electricity rather than generating it, the conundrum hit me. We have to protect the resources that we love because we use loads of them. As a part of the American dream, we build big houses set on big plots of land connected by roads that we drive down in our big cars to get to the big stores. The largess of things is a tangential topic, which I won’t go into right now, but is relevant nonetheless. On top of the scale of things, think of the power and water and sewer lines that run criss-crossing long distances to provide services to all of these little oases. Having lived in a culture where everyone lives virtually on top of one another even when there is ample space to spread out, I can say that it is definitely nice to be back in a culture where people place a high value on personal space, but it has also become apparent that, in order to have it, requires a lot of resources.
Add to that the busyness of our culture and the drive to be productive in all that we do. I plead guilty to reading my email about one subject, writing unrelated notes about a second, all while talking on the phone about a third. But, I’m saving the planet, right? It just requires that I create lots of reports and brochures that I print out on reams of paper and ship all over the place (not to mention the people that fundraise for environmental non-profits through zillions of mailings), and I drive to places like Wakefield for meetings or fly to DC and I need to have an office with a fax and a copier and telephones and computers and lights and heating and cooling systems that are on all the time in order that I can successfully protect the world’s oceans. If I wasn’t doing this, I would probably be outside enjoying the ocean and using virtually no resources at all, having walked or biked my way there and relishing in being disconnected from all electronic devices. This is not to mention the fact that I have noticed that the more I work, the more resources I consume in my personal life – I dry my laundry in a dryer rather than hanging it outside, I vacuum instead of sweep, making use of machines that I have to plug in to do my work in less time. Add to that driving more, eating more pre-packaged food, and working out at gymns!
Maybe it is out of a sense of collective guilt that environmentalism has grown increasingly popular. We love the idea of conservation of the very nature that drew people to populate this country in the first place and that we identify with so strongly. And so, we race around working very hard to protect it and we are, on the whole, well ahead of the rest of the world. In Italy, for example, there is a great appreciation for nature as well, but the same sense of stewardship does not exist. Nature is thought of as a place that is there for everyone to enjoy but no one to take ownership or responsibility for. Here, we are so used to the idea of owning our own piece of it that it makes sense to organize ourselves to manage it well – to have established parks, monitoring programs to keep track of wildlife, water quality protections in place, and rules – lots of rules – in place to tell people how to behave when using this nature.
While we are ahead in protections for the environment, we are far behind in reducing our resource consumption. Don’t we have to do promote environmentalism because we use so many resources on a daily basis that if we didn’t use up some of these resources protecting and defending nature, it wouldn’t be there at all? Or, could we just use less in the first place and spend fewer resources protecting it? Skeptics of the environmental movement might then say that all of us environmentalists ought to quit our jobs and stay home and we’d have a bigger impact. Maybe we’d all be happier too. But, part one of the great things about Americans is their drive towards progress - we all have a need to be a part of that which is ingrained through our upbringing and reinforced by everything around us. So, perhaps there is a middle ground out there where we will realize that a pace that is a little slower is actually more productive and consumes fewer resources. Then, I think we really would all be happier (and save the planet too).
