Converting the Cynics

Over Thanksgiving break I was limited in the selection of people I could talk to, and so was not able to encounter anyone that explicitly disagreed with the reality of global climate change and warming. However, I did have an interesting conversation with my uncle. He is very environmentally conscious in his daily life- he separates his trash into more categories than I thought existed, drives a prius when he isn’t riding his bike, and spends as much time outdoors as he possibly can. While this is all well and good, when I began talking about this class with him, he rolled his eyes. He asked me why I was taking a course that was so depressing and worthless in the sense that no change big enough would ever come, which he attributed to the apathy of the public and the politicians’ exploitation of said attitude. First I appealed to him and explained that I used to feel the same way, helpless and cynical. But then I began to share with him the work of McDonough and Braungart. I explained their concept of remaking the way we make things, the way we live, and the way we function as a society. I told him, with great enthusiasm, that changing the apathy of the public does not have to our goal, and that instead, we can use pressure points like corporations and policymakers to influence and incite institutional changes. At first he still did not think that we could get around self-interested politicians, but as we continued to talk, he seemed to change his mind and even began brainstorming a social revolution! (kind of like we did in class)

I felt so powerful to have changed the perception my uncle had, and to spark a bit of optimism and inspiration within him. By merely laying out some of the fundamental suggestions presented by McDonough and Braungart, and explaining the idea that the public need not be entirely on board, my uncle’s view of our situation shifted, and he was able to open his mind to many possibilities. My favorite was an idea he had to work with corporations like Kmart and Target to have only one of every item out on display in a store, and the consumer would have to swipe a card or scan the item to add it to their list, and then collect all their items at the very end from a storage house. This way, none of the items had to be packaged in ridiculous ways and amounts of plastic, and could simply all be bound together in one giant bundle and then distributed, unpackaged, to consumers, which would reduce waste.

I learned that although it is easy for people to grow cynical about this situation, with the tools we have used in class it is just as easy to help them grow optimistic. I learned that in order to generate constructive change, it is important to reach out to people like my uncle, who are determined to do their individual part but still feel hopeless as a community. People like my uncle are waiting for the knowledge that we have acquired in this class to spark them and become involved in taking the next step.