I am always shocked by the amount of anger that is engendered in many US citizens by any discussion involving global warming. People here in the UK just do not seem to take it all so personally. Why is this?
Perhaps is has something to do with the capitalist, consumer philosophy that current economic wisdom is based on. This has been pioneered by the US over the last 100 years or so and exported to much of the world with an almost religious zeal. It seems to represent, for some people, the essence of being American and the American Dream.
To accept the ‘green’ message is to accept that classical consumer capitalism is wrong: you cannot live a truly sustainable lifestyle in a system that demands constant expansion and therefore an ever-increasing drain on resources. It is like pyramid selling, which is well documented as making a few people very wealthy before collapsing. So for those people that feel the current economic situation is a core part of their American identity, telling them to plant a few veggies in their yard is tantamount to treason or heresy.
Do we have to try and make a sustainable economy appear part the American Dream to completely sell it to the American public?
Or am I talking cobblers?
Ps – The Guardian newspaper has a good article about the psychology of climate denial and why it is still so prevalent.
Sustainability & The American Dream republished with permission from Ecoboom.
Angus
Angus Middleton grew up in a small village in Kent, where his parents lived a semi self-sufficient lifestyle. With a degree in Geophysics and a Master’s at LEEDS, he spent time working as an environmental consultant before founding Ecoboom in 2009. Angus started Ecoboom to help people in the UK improve their lifestyles through becoming more eco. Ecoboom aims to bring together all the disparate eco resources on the web, empowering both the providers and users of these resources. Angus believes that unity is vital to achieve a smooth transition to a low carbon world: united we stand, divided we fall! Connect with Angus on Twitter and LinkedIn.
thank you Angus. in trying to turn fashionRIP Project from an art w/ message installation into a grander, local , sustainable economic, experiment i need to spark people into pooling resources and capital to build new systems. IE for the RIP i am thinking a co-op building buy that can house several eco sane businesses. People agree on the merit of pooling their funds to enable that which they want to manifest, which will also be a more diverse economic system and therefore more able to withstand trauma ( patterned after nature) and yet at the same time are dependent and programmed by stock market investing which is throwing money out of fear at the very thing that is causing huge problems. However, little by little more people are tuning into this insanity and before the end of 2012 i am determined to that fashionRIP Project will be open and running. It and other sole proprietors, co-ops, and triple bottom line corporations are part of the solution.
thanks Angus, biodiversity is good for nature (human species too) and economics