Often the environmental movement presents the reason for change as protecting our future children. How often do you hear: "We need to do X to assure a world for our children and grandchildren".
I hear it, I've read it, I've even written it here on this blog. But I didn't write it because that is the MAIN reason I care about the environment.
Yup, I said it. I am not a Greenie or EcoYogini in order to protect the planet for future generations. I'm not against children, Andrew and I will probably have one someday. But when I think about why we've made all these changes about our lives it has nothing to do with humans and everything to do with the planet.
(Lobster traps in Chéticamp Cape Breton last September 2011)
My Origin Greenie Story includes the smell of moss and leaves in our Atlantic Canadian forests, clean rivers filled with non-mutant tadpoles and catfish, deer pistes in the mud near our cottage.
What's yours?
Although I can hardly consider myself a greenie, I'm trying hard to be more aware ;-) mainly I just want to live healthier, which ties in pretty closely with living greener.
ReplyDeleteMy motivation for living healthier was of course kids, setting a proper example and doing my best to keep them from the 'diabesity' epidemic... so..yeah, I guess it all kind of comes back to kids for me! lol.
I'm afraid that I'm boring. For me it was having my kids back in the late 1980s. I wasn't interested in future generations but instead cleaning up the world right now for my kids, the plants and animals and all the living creatures who are sharing this planet.
ReplyDeleteI don't have kids so I can't say I try to be "green" for the kids, but I do feel that I have a duty to not destroy the planet while I'm on it. You know to preserve it, not just for future humans, but for future life in general.
ReplyDelete@Jade: You are totally a Greenie! The bonus is that as you make changes to help prevent "diabesity" and keep chemicals low for them, you're also helping the planet :)
ReplyDelete@s.e.: that's not boring! what's interesting is how most people make the change or paradigm shift when they have children.
@Martha: yes, exactly. If humans benefit, bonus. but preserving life in general is also my goal.
I just remember always being in love with nature, except for a brief time in early adolescence when I just wanted to live in a make-up and fashion-filled bubble. (Must've been hormone-induced insanity.) My grandpa owned a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains (southern California) and every weekend we would drive up and spend two glorious days there. It just made me love the earth and wild animals, and as I grew up, I gravitated toward issues like recycling and endangered species. Like you, I never much thought about it as worrying about the future of the world for our children - though that's certainly important to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to think that being a greenie is, actually, all about saving humans, because the planet itself really isn't in any danger. Ultimately, all the damage we've done doesn't amount to much more than a bad cold for the planetary ecosystem--not nearly strong enough to kill it, but very possibly strong enough to lead to our extinction (as well as that of many other species, but certainly not of life itself--the earthquake that killed the dinosaurs did far more damage than we're capable of, but, in the long run, allowed for the rise of mammals). Once we're gone, things will eventually (though, on a planetary scale, in a very short period of time) go back to being pretty much the way they were before we got here (so, that, really, if I wanted to be misanthropic about it, I might say that the best thing we could do for the earth would be to continue on our current self-destructive course). Ultimately, to save ourselves, I think, means to break down the dichotomy of people and earth--to see that, basically, what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves, and, in fact, though it might seem like we're profiting from damaging the earth, in fact we're doing a lot more harm to ourselves than we are to the earth.
ReplyDeleteI'm planet-based as well but will clarify that overpopulation creates pollution, not children as a group. Adoption adoption adoption! Now that is green parenting at its finest - with or without giving birth, it takes a village :)
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