Perez 1 Luis Perez AP English III Professor Thomas July 31, 2011 The Green Lie The world

is ending. Human population, over the past century, has increased at such an unnatural rate that nature can no longer provide enough for everyone. She can no longer sustain the constant and unrelenting attack on her resources. Her beauty is being ravaged by the shortsighted simplicity of Man; her complexity is being destroyed by the cumulative greed of mankind. But to add fuel to the fire, those few who have the power to slow the destruction prefer to live in comfort and pass on the responsibility to the next generation. The next generation prefers to dismiss the changing environment as a natural cycle, and therefore dispose itself of any sense of guilt, passing the responsibility to the few intellectuals who acknowledge the danger. Yet, climate change cannot come down to a game of catch; responsibility cannot simply be handed down to fewer and fewer individuals. In the end, comfort is the vicious element in the equation for change and ecological harmony. The masses, the billions who sleep with Hunger on one side and Death in the other, look up at the industrialized nations of the world not because they respect the ideas of the elite that inhabit those countries, but because they envy the comfort that the people lucky enough to have been born in the lands of prosperity possess. The United States is home to only 4.6% percent of the worlds population [yet enjoys] 25% of the worlds oil and the majority of the worlds resources (Report of an Independent Task Force 312). Not even taking into account the increasing trend in consumption, attempting to grant every individual the level of comfort Americans enjoy is impossible. Well, it is with the

Perez 2 currently accepted wisdom. Individuals have been brainwashed into thinking that they alone, if attempting in enough numbers, can cure the devastation mankind has caused, that their own actions will remedy the disease humankind has given the earth, and that returning into harmony with nature will be easy. But a problem began by individuals, worsened by inefficient governmental policies, and deepened by corporate interests cannot be cured in simple, separate steps. Despite the fact that individuals will need to make changes in their personal energy policies, those changes and habits will be mostly, if not entirely, symbolic symbolic but essential. The individual changes will lead to a deep, societal revolution. Change will be hard, and despite the fact that the individual can make his or her own path through the wild jungle of life, the independent mind alone cannot create the innovation necessary to guide civilization. Yet, something that infinitely worsens the problem is the idea that there is an easy fix. Not only are people deluded into believing it is up to them, and solely them, to so solve the problem, but they are also misguided into the false sense of security that a revolution can occur in which everyone will be a winner. A false thought that leads to planting our flag prematurely[a]nd thats what weve started doing lately a green band, some green buzz, a green concert, and were on our way to solving the problem (Friedman, 299). The lie perpetuated throughout society though the use of mass media leaves the masses educated but misguided. People begin assuming that going green will fix the problem, when in truth going green will only divert the same damaging use of resources towards a green product. The green myth grows in strength and captures civilization in a green hallucination (Friedman, 299). Many pride themselves for using fuel efficient cars, or even better, running a car purely on ethanol. Yet, the corn necessary for the production of ethanol is a problem in itself. In farms around the world, chemical fertilizers are used to bring out a greater yield from Zea mays

Perez 3 (Omnivores Dilemma, 57). Chemical fertilizers that are directly derived from non-renewable fossil fuels. Again, the problem is just passed on. The whole green movement seems more like any other passing trend that has no real effects on life. Or is it? Did not the Jazz fad of early 20th century ultimately lead to greater freedom for females culminating the goal of the 19th Amendment? Each fad ushers in an era of change; the grassroots movement is indispensible and goes hand in hand with governmental policy. Even though the green fad currently fighting to survive under intellectual criticism has yet to lead to any major governmental changes in policy, it has brought up the awareness of the public. Misguided as they might be, its better to be hypocritical than apathetic when it comes to the environment (Friedman 299). Data gathered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and unanimous reports clearly demonstrates imminent danger that can only be avoided by presenting the scientific information to the individuals. Yet, the current system has focused far too much on teaching, and not enough on carrying out the actions that logically follow the facts. Millions claims to make active changes in their daily lives, and no doubt that many of them do, but the largest effective change so far has been the European Unions reluctant acceptance of a cap and trade program that, at best, only limits the growth in carbon emissions. Even the United States of American, a leader in innovation, is weary of establishing any sort of concrete policy fearing a repercussion from the over-educated voter population. Yet, it is in the hands of the individuals to coerce their governments into action through symbolic changes in their own lifestyles. Education about climate change is necessary, but too much leads directly to the current state of hypocrisy that many individuals currently find themselves trapped in. The amount of time, energy, and verbiage being spent on making people aware of the energy-climate

Perez 4 problemis out of all proportion to the time, energy, and effort going into designing a systematic solution. Everyone is aware of the problem, but all are too lazy and complacent to do anything to solve it. Still, even if each individual followed the green fad that is being spread throughout the world, if we sum up the easy, cost-effective, eco-friendly measures, the best we get is a slowing of the growth of environmental damage, not the reversal of the trend which is what is so desperately necessary (Friedman 293). Only governmental change coupled with cooperation from large corporations can lead to a direct effect on the climate problem. Even if every individual were to miraculously turn into an environmentally-aware citizen, and each individual were to agree on the correct steps necessary for harmonization with the environment, a task that even the most optimistic and good-natured realist will find hard to believe, those changes alone will not have a desirable effect. If society stops at the individual, then our civilization is doomed. A problem caused by old ways of thought can only be solved by a higher mode of thinking, in which there exists something more than the individual, something more than society, something akin to the spirit of humanity. The institutions must be educated. Following the same logic that led to the reversal of the recent economic downturn and the same logic that Franklin D. Roosevelt employed during the Great Depression, it is the actions of the forgotten men that eventually lead to a turn in politics. Only after the individual voter participates in the green movement and makes the symbolic changes in his or her life will those who hold power in society, the top one-percent (who according to a recent study from the University of California control over one-third of all wealth) and the elected leaders of the democratic world, follow suit and end the populations dependence, not on foreign oil or fossil fuels, but on inefficient resources, technologies, and practices. Only we can make an immediate and large strategic investment [in] 21st century technology (Gore 302) that will lead

Perez 5 not only to a reduction in carbon emissions but a complete integration of business and government (Lubber 320). The investment will need to be so massive that many private corporations, led by their environmentally conscious consumers who will act as a vocal minority that leads the dollar aristocracy, will have to work together with the governments of the world, led by the symbolic changes of their voters, and the two largest, most powerful entities human kind has to offer will be the ones to directly impact the environment, as they always have, but hopefully in a beneficial way. The individual cannot directly bring about the remedy for nature, but nature can directly bring about the happiness of the individual. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth and when nature is finally in harmony then mankind will prevail (Chief Seattle 823). Neither can survive without the other, for without nature men perish and without men nature faces no new challenges. But the same logic goes in the opposite direction. The beauty of nature ravaged by men leads directly to the destruction of mankind. Everything in nature is connected, and from her humanity has learned, and has yet to learn, many things. Nature needs to be saved by the global community because the individual is not capable to do so alone, but the individual must demonstrate and must symbolize the beauty of nature itself. Only then can each live, and can both flourish. Nature is a beauty best admired, not destroyed; a treasured gift that needs to be saved for future generations to enjoy. The beauty of nature should be enough to require her survival and to encourage Homo sapiens, the species that has brought about destruction, to work together in an organized way and bring human society under control. Ultimately the individual change will be purely symbolic; but the symbolism itself will be a necessary part of progress. The time for change is now. It is time to lead through symbolic, individual actions that demonstrate that the votes of humanity are not a blank check empty of

Perez 6 funds and that the mighty power of the dollar, euro, and yuan can finally be put to a use that will further the soul of Man along the path of Nature instead of darkening individualistic goals with greed. The challenge has been set. Like the youth of the sixties who in ten years time met the goal of reaching the moon, an impossible task, the youth of today must now rise and meet the difficult mission of reshaping the concept of life itself. Comforts must be sacrificed and ideas questioned. The time is ripe for protest for actions that move past symbolism. The Earth is dying. We are dying with it.