What NOT to be Thankful for

When I was first faced with this assignment, I was genuinely worried about the lack of convincing my almost unanimously liberal family would need in terms of having a productive and revealing environment-themed conversation. My expectations were substantially unmet; the response disheartening in a way I hadn't even anticipated. First, I realize that I myself fell victim to the politicization of environmental issues we have so been warned against in this course. In my first and perhaps most poignant lesson, generally liberal ideology does not legitimize an assumption that the same ideology will translate to environmental issues.

Perhaps the most disheartening portion of my Thanksgiving conversation was the lack of family members willing to entertain it. Because I was mostly expecting viewpoints that would be harmonious with my own, I took a pretty lax approach in terms of igniting conversation. I broached the subject with my most recent academic news--usually a crowd pleaser. I informed my family of my switch in concentration from International Economic Development to Global Environmental Politics. This, combined with my summer job working for an non-profit organization called Environment New York prompted a multitude of "tree-hugger" comments and jokes. Likely attributable to the intoxicated state of my family, I hardly took their jokes to heart. As my failed attempts to further ignite conversation became increasingly apparent, however, I became truly disheartened by the stigma attached to environmental conversation. Any points I attempted to make seemed to fall on deaf ears, as various points geared towards various family members continued to be cast aside. Acknowledgement of environmental problems seemed enough to brush aside any attempt to substantiate or explain the issues, and I was-- at the most-- met with a polite but unsettling response of little more than the concession that environmental problems exist and are at least partially man-made. It became overwhelmingly clear how complacent my family was. Their utter resistance to entertain any substantial conversation seemed, at least to me, attributable to a discomfort with their own knowledge. They seemed content with the fact that they were "educated" enough to recognize the issue, and to know some political current events surrounding it.

A large part of my failure, in hindsight, was the approach I took and who I took it with. My older family members simply were not prepared to entertain "tree-hugger jargon" at the Thanksgiving table. Also, the genetically modified foods subject I chose as my conversation starter (it seemed relevant on Thanksgiving) was probably a bad idea for the very same reason. This just reiterates the fact that people stray from any discomfort in terms of the habits they are unwilling to break with. In retrospect, I also realize that despite my initial diplomatic attempts at conversation, I eventually got a little too fiery and extreme in the face of my family's refusal to--essentially--take me seriously. I explained my switch from economics to the environment with my exaggerated belief that economics is increasingly useless and almost everything will fall victim to environmental degradation if we continue the way I do. Indeed, this was largely fueled by the semester's earlier discussion of our preponderance to measure happiness by GDP and the fact that we are modeling ourselves off of economic models that merely look pretty on paper, but are far from sustainable. This point, surprisingly enough, was driven home by environmental discussion in unlikely places-- including my International Economics course as well as my Analysis of US Foreign Policy course. I realize, however, without information and out of context this is quite an extreme opinion. I perhaps could have concluded rather than led with this point.

In an ironic mirroring of the semester's general pattern, my mostly depressing findings culminated with a ray of hope. Perhaps because Thanksgiving was simply not the time nor the place, perhaps because of the rather intoxicated state of the majority of my family, I found more success post-Thanksgiving-- at home with my sister and father. I assumed that I knew them well enough to not expect any passionate objections OR affirmations in terms of environmental issues. Thus, I did not target them much on Thanksgiving, as I had a sea of family members whom I thought would yield much more interesting results. Instead, I found both of their responses surprising and encouraging in different manners. I began talking to my sister about Maniates' and other author's belief in a systematic approach to environmental change. After giving her the watered-down facts, mainly pointing to a need for much more than individual change, she reiterated and even provided material on my point. I was honestly floored and elated by her response. Without having even touched upon what kind of systematic approaches we might change, she whipped out a fact sheet from climatecounts.org. She has a food blog, and companies often send her food samples in hopes that she'll review them. The fact sheet was sent along with samples from a relatively green company, and delivered a poignant message. Ranking various types of companies by how green they are, they encourage consumers to "vote with their dollar," sending messages to big companies by putting their money towards environmentally friendly companies. She seemed well-versed in the voice we could gain if we systematically alter how green big companies are by our combined consumer power.

Even more surprising was the interaction I had with my father. Throughout the course, I have been shocked by how unintentionally green of a life my father lives. He keeps his own garden, and mostly eats from that alone. He is a runner, and often runs to work and carpools home with coworkers. He almost never buys new things unless they MUST be replaced. In fact, we have had the same broken-down, 9/11 surviving family car since I was 2 (I'm now 20). To my families dismay, he simply refuses to part ways with it. In reality, my father is only relatively environmentally conscious. A large portion of the aforementioned are directly attributable to his frugality. This is why, throughout the course, I have been floored by how environmentally-friendly my father lives solely because of his cheapness. Of course, he was more than happy to learn about my revelations-- as any accrediting of his frugality is almost enough to make the large sum of money he pays for my education worthwhile. I discussed the storyofstuff with him, iterating how he naturally escaped the prevalent ideology so many Americans have adopted. Unintentionally, this was an enlightening lesson. If this wasteful ideology can be replaced, Americans can live green on frugality alone. This adds to the likelihood of change, as even those generally unconcerned could be part of real change. This also, however, reiterated the embededness of this truth. My family--including myself--have often chastised my father for his cheapness, considering his actions ridiculous. I, for one, will never again chime in on any cheap jokes. In fact, I may have found the perfect leeway into environmental conversation for attempt round 2!