Why Bother?

Some will say it does not make a difference for a family to put solar panels on their roofs or to begin doing home energy audits to ensure we are wasting less. Individual actions will not do anything to reduce our country’s carbon dioxide emissions or stop us from ceaselessly consuming resources because in the age of modernity, developed countries especially the United States run on a growth-oriented system. Unless the minds of the majority of Americans are changed, we will continue to emit “an average of 20 tons of carbon dioxide a year” compared to 10 tons for Europeans. Simply considering this statistic, however, helps us notice that most Europeans live on a smaller, more human scale. This scale includes walkable places, with very defined public spaces, enabling residents to call where they live “home”. According to the outspoken expert, James H. Kunstler, this should be our goal for the 21^st century, to recreate communities so all Americans have a place they can call home, where they won’t be scared to walk and where they are willing to communicate with each other. Currently, Americans are “sleepwalking into the future” because they cannot make the distinction between “consumers” and “citizens” (Kunstler). He defines consumers as people who feel they have no obligation, and unfortunately, this is what will make us more vulnerable, and what will hinder our changes as a nation. In a TED Talks, Kunstler claims that “human spirit needs texture, not sleekness in its dwelling place, and it needs things human-sized to feel truly human, and despite all the striving to escape that, it is exactly what we’re going to get.” Making a difference depends on policy changes. 

"We have about 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the United States today. When we have enough of them, we're going to have a nation that's not worth defending..."