As climate change and environmental unsustainability become larger and larger problems, it gets ever the clearer that in order to return our planet to its former, healthy state, we have to focus on the root causes of the problem and address them accordingly: taking big action and addressing the harmful, pro-corporation policies that the government has set up. In the past decade or two, we have seen remarkable symptoms of unsustainable use of our planet showcase themselves to the public. We have seen Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina wreck havoc in the east and southeast coast, respectively, results of extreme weathers and natural disasters caused by climate change. We have seen the water tables for aquifers drop drastically, threatening water supplies in the coming years. We have seen disappearing forests and habitats for numerous species, causing one of the biggest mass extinctions in the history of the planet. All that is because of the current economy and how it fundamentally functions. In order to change the status quo, we have to target the current economy as well as the governmental policies that support it by initiating change as grass-roots organizations and building upwards from there.
It all started after World War II, when corporations were looking for ways to improve the economy after two huge wars basically wiped out the economies of many, many countries. They came up with the idea of consumerism, and ensured its continuity with the development of planned and perceived obsolescence, which in effect, causes people to consume more products. Consumption of products in and of itself is not a bad thing; however, it is the process and system of consumerism that causes so much harm to our planet. Extraction often includes over-harvesting of resources, including wood, minerals, oil, and precious metals, among others, that result in extreme depletion of natural resources that completely change the environment of the location of extraction. The process of production and manufacturing the products usually cause huge releases of toxic chemicals that go into the air or water pollute the environment, adding huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the air and directly contributing to global warming and climate change. Last but not least, rapid disposal of the products we buy because of planned and perceived obsolescence is causing landfills to overflow with unwanted goods, and trash our environment by taking up space to place all the stuff we no longer want. None of this would have happened, or would have happened at such a large scale, if governments had set policies and regulations that prevented such violations of the environment to occur. However, because it worked in conjunction with the corporations in developing the current economy and is largely influenced by the corporations themselves, the government has yet to initiate big changes in environment policy that will actually make a difference to the environment. As a result, it is us, the citizens of the government, that have to address this issue and play the game of politics if we are to ever get our environment, planet, and economy back again. It is no longer enough to just focus on the intermediate problems, such as the air-polluting factories and environmentally harmful extraction techniques. In order to cause real, permanent, genuine change in the way we consume products and in our lifestyles, it is essential to target the root causes of the problem--the current economy and anitiso that we can eradicate it once and for all. Naomi Klein argues, similarly, that we only have two choices on our hands: "allowing climate change disruption to change everything about our world, or changing pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate". She contends that the baby-steps tactic we have been using for the past few decades is not working, bringing up the huge setback the climate change movement experienced when they decided not to fight back against President Reagan's claim that regulations on corporations are considered communist actions, and that it is time to take out the big guns. She says that we can't avoid politics if we are to try to make huge changes--engaging in both national and international politics is the only way we'll be able to make changes that actually matter. She is optimistic, though, that the new grass-roots climate change movement is going to build a lot of momentum because they are filled with people who are now experiencing first hand that problems that come with the unsustainable usage and extraction of natural resources as well as the damage that climate change and altering weather patterns wrecks on their societies and lifestyles. Action by the people, she argues, is what is needed to finally make the environmental change that is long overdue.
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We had our first socratic seminar of the year yesterday, August 27th, and even though it probably wasn't the best that we could muster, it certainly wasn't the worst. Our discussion was based on two pieces: the book "The World in 2050" by Laurence C. Smith and the TED Talk given by Edward Burtynsky "My Wish: Manufactured Landscapes and Green Education". We started off the seminar discussing corporate activity, specifically that related to wages, and slowly eased our way into the four global forces mentioned in Smith's book and the different ways that we could try to save our environment from utter destruction by climate change, among others. Overall, I felt like we were really respectful of each other and we all tried to participate in one way or the other, amid some prompting. However, in terms of establishing opinions and supporting points with substantial evidence, we were a bit lacking. No one really used specific quotes or statistics from either the TED Talk or the book to back up their claims, which made all our arguments weaker than they could have been. Also, sometimes some of us (guilty) would lose our train of thoughts, which obviously makes the points we're trying to push a lot weaker and results in some sort of rambling that has no clear point or argument. I'd say for the next socratic seminar, it would do us all good if we could actually use the notes we took, or highlight the strongest points from our notes or the ones we want to use, and support our arguments with it. In terms of the rambling, it would help if we can think through our argument, or even jot part os it down if you think you might forget, before presenting it to the class. Despite our weaker areas, I felt like this was fairly good for a first socratic seminar, and I am definitely looking forward to our next one.
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