There are many people who think that humans are getting what was coming to them. We destroyed thousands of acres of forests, hunted animals to extinction, pumped the atmosphere with chemicals, and laid cities to waste with nuclear bombs. Why shouldn’t we be punished for all the environmental crimes we have committed, right? The most interesting implication of the Anthropocene is that the people who will be most impacted are also the people who (for the most part) had the smallest hand in creating it. Whenever I hear about rising sea levels, it’s usually coupled with shots of a small island nation in the middle of the ocean that most people have never heard of. Not to say that people in developed countries will not feel the impacts of the Anthropocene, but we will likely watch most of the world’s smallest and underdeveloped countries suffer long before a solution is (or is not) found.
On the concept of systems thinking, I find the idea that though some of us are vegan or take the bus, we shoulder the responsibility of being an American when talking about our ecological footprint. That made me wonder, how many people who claim to be “green” do so with the intention of making an impact? How much of it is just to make ourselves feel better? Do we attempt to negate our part in the American footprint by changing small lifestyle choices? For example, I have a friend who went vegetarian for environmental reasons, but she flies to and from Los Angles four times a year for school. Seems a little counter productive, right?
I went into this post with the intention of answering some questions I had, but I ended up with another paragraph full. Welcome to attempting to tackle the Anthropocene.
(Photo: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/world/asia/climate-change-kiribati.html)