I suck. I suck because I haven’t “really” converted my friends to become greenies. None of them. I’ve made them think. I’ve made them feel guilty. I’ve made them say “oh no here comes Paul.” But as an educator somedays I feel like I failed....
I have a morning routine of making coffee and then washing dishes while looking out at sunrise pondering the meaning of life and some days staring at my neighbors 5 barrels of trash. I consider them friends but they still have not heard my urges of recycling cardboard or the preaching of lessening impact before we perish in the firery depths of hell.
Some days I feel like Debby Downer from Saturday Night Live and I wish I could just watch soccer with my buds and not think about the carbon footprint of a large stadium or the BP spill and my friends disinterest in talking with me about it or the amount of waste I created by watching that soccer match. Chip bags and bottles.
The average American produces from 3-5 pounds of trash per day, which adds up to 50 tons per year. That means over 200 million tons of trash are produced by everyone in the U.S. every year! Up to 70% of this trash is buried in landfills.
I’ve been in EE now for 20 years and I’ve lived in Goshen for ten and I know my friends are not perfect and neither am I but this idealist is allowed to get down once in a while.
If you remember in that list that compared yesterday’s with today’s emphasis in environmental education, one comparison that I pointed out was “business as usual” versus “urgency”. I do feel it is more urgent now to make a difference.
My friends do do their part and I wouldn’t say reluctantly, by recycling, shopping at the Farmers Market - but I want more! We need more! I want them to act out! I want them to go to the city council meetings! I want them to run for some sort of political seat on a sustainability ticket! I want them to understand – I want to make a difference in their behavior and attitudes. Shall I test them?
I am anxious about the future and I want to make people change now – but how do we do it? We help them remove their barriers - lack of time, Money, Confidence, Interest, Lack of information about opportunities to learn, Scheduling problems, “Red tape”, Problems with child care, Transportation. I must continually refresh my hope, increase my knowledge base and keep active in the environmental/ecological community. Part of my job as a friend, father, neighbor, educator is to help remove these “barriers” so we can all become more environmentally literate and responsible citizens!
Wouldn’t that be great?
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