How to care about the environment: Global style

I used to read those books detailing some things people can help the environment. These things included taking shorter showers, recycling, and driving less. These books told me actions which I can take, and for a while I felt I really made a difference in the environment, especially when the author points out that if everybody did an action, how many trees or how much water we would save. While I appreciate these books, because they offer simple advice about a colossal issue, my viewpoint about the environment has been shifting.

Cutting Edge is a big research paper in the subbie Earth studies class. It is a large rite-of-passage at school during the subfreshman year, partly because the grade on this paper makes up for most of the second semester grade, and partially because of much class time is devoted to explaining about, researching for, and peer-evaluating Cutting Edge papers (and, of course, because it's tradition and because the upperclassmen make it to be a huge deal). I did my Cutting Edge project on water issues. One of the largest issues I saw about our water usage system is how much disorganization we as water users have.

In many communities, we have no long-term (and oftentimes no short-term!) water usage plan. Although my paper focuses on the technologies to save water and make more freshwater (the assignment is called Cutting Edge), I made sure to explain several categories of water usage plans.

For the information to come: thanks to my interviewee for my Cutting Edge paper, Peter Gleick, for giving me an interview about this vital, and often overlooked, part of water issues! Not only does his ideas pertain to water usage, they also changed the way I look at ecology--forever.

The technology we have, Gleick explained, is only a stepping stone to a global solution to our water problems. Technology on itself is pointless. Having, and successfully implementing, a powerful plan should be first priority. We as humans usually get excited by new gimmicks, but honestly, these new technologies are just that: gimmicks. Think of it this way: the technology is the new, handy smartphone. It is cool, it is neat, but it doesn't get anywhere without the service. The service is what makes the brilliant phone a phone, not just a $200 toy.

The small tips I get from those books ("Turn down the air conditioner in the summer!) don't really have a huge impact (except on my conscience). What we need are plans to tackle the nationwide, global, and even statewide ecological issues. Stemming from these plans can be new laws or easier accessibility to ecological solutions. That's how humans may possibly have a chance to fix the planet we screwed up on so much.