Are My Actions a Drop in the Bucket? by Gia Machlin, September 02 2009, 1 Comment
In my first post, "Welcome," I introduced the MIGG. This is a person who doesn't make the environment a top priority because:
M - My actions are just a drop in the bucket!
I - I've got bigger issues to deal with right now!
G - Global Warming? - Not in my Lifetime!
G - Greenwashing is everywhere - who can I trust?
As a reformed MIGG, or rather a transformed MIGG, I find the hardest one of these to get over is the feeling that this environmental crisis is so much bigger than any one person, and that my actions are just a drop in the bucket. I mean, are we just going to hell in a handbasket anyway? Last week in an op-ed in the New York Times - "Are we too late?" - H. D. S. Greenway came just short of declaring our impending doom. With the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference around the corner, he's not the only one saying we need to focus on drastic geoengineering measures to reverse global warming rather than trying to prevent it.
That's all well and good, and I'm glad the earth scientists out there are working on figuring out how to blast fake volcanoes and cool down the atmosphere, but I can't get my little head around that. What I do know is that I like trees, I like the ocean, and I understand that when it comes to the ridiculous amount of waste we produce as individuals, it is a zero sum game - there are only so many places for that plastic that takes 700 years to begin to decompose to go. I know there is an island of plastic garbage double the size of Texas floating around in the Pacific Ocean. That I can understand. So while the scientists do their work, I will do mine. I will do everything I can to reduce the amount of waste I produce, be conscious about the ultimate disposal of the materials I consume, and continue to blab about it to anyone who will listen. Thanks for listening.
Comments
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Gia Machlin on May 14 2015 at 06:25PM
Here are the original comments from WordPress in September 2009:
Pat Verma September 3, 2009 at 12:44 am [edit]
It is only rational and reasonable for us to think that everyone’s actions are nothing more than a DROP IN THE BUCKET? Every drop counts if there are TERRA-trillions of them. There are only 750,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (72x 10^27) drops of water on the planet. Even if the answer to the last week in an op-ed in the New York Times – “Are we too late?” is clearly in the affirmative. YES. We are not going to be able to halt the warming. Red flags to that effect are everywhere. But still it is not a reason to give up and not to hold CHIN UP. At least we can make it less serious a problem. It may be like terminal cancer but we still need to deal with it in whatever way we can. Even if it takes plastic 700 years to begin to decompose the bright thing to do is to allow the planet that thousand year time, stop throwing more plastic in the oceans and wait for the decomposition of the existing junk. Continuing to bark or blab about this Climate Chaos that is inevitable is still needed and it is necessary to find ways to find who people who will listen and if a bigger circle of people willing to HUG each other and make small sacrifices for each other and we build an army of such people the size of a billion that would CERTAINLY be enough drops to fill the bucket. Let us go for the HUGS HALT CHANGE CAMAPAIGN. It is after all only a simple game of numbers!Meg September 3, 2009 at 4:34 am [edit]
This is something I struggle with often as well. Does what I do mean anything? Am I doing enough? Am I doing the things that will have the most impact? Ultimately, time will tell. I know it sounds kind of ostrich-like, but I often ignore the scary stuff that is not within my ability to influence or change, and focus on the stuff I understand and can make a positive impact with – albeit a small one. And I find the more little things I do the more I see that I can change. . .David September 6, 2009 at 1:21 pm [edit]
For me at least, the problem is that when it comes to the environment and its problems/solutions is that the issues start crossing over each other and being tripped up in our minds. Take the article Gia mentioned the NYT article, which is primarily an OpEd on a global solution to climate change and how it may need to take into account the damage we can not reverse or fix. Ok, that seems really, really far from my everyday experience or even what I see outside my window. I do not see glaciers melting or an extended drought in Australia. What I do see is that on Tuesday and Fridays my neighbors and I take a huge amount of garbage to the curb to be picked up. Here is the point I am trying to get to; even if there were no climate change problem, and I do believe wholeheartedly that there is, there is a waste problem and I do have control of that. A lot of us were not even aware of the problems our waste could be creating. Let’s just look at plastics for now. Whether you’re Democrat or Republican that giant island of plastic that Gia mentioned has to be alarming. We have thrown away plastic bags and bottles without thinking of its long term costs and yet, this is the most important thing, this is preventable. We can figure out ways to limit our waste and it begins with each of us. Then as companies and industry sees what is important to us they respond. Make no mistake companies are a reflection of our buying habits and us; if we change they will change. For example the plastic bag industry is now championing more recycling of their plastic bags, which is exactly the right response from them. Nevertheless a reusable bag just makes more sense -think of it no waste, nothing thrown out. The problem is that it takes a change in the way we do things. So for a reusable bag we need to make sure we bring it with us when we go shopping which, if you are like me seems hard. I started putting a quarter in a glass jar every time I forget. I may need a bigger jar before I change because there seems to be a lot of quarters in that jar right now.