Thanksgiving at Home

I went home for Thanksgiving but I wasn’t able to think of someone to talk to that had environmental views that were very different from mine. Generally my friends don’t think about the environment in their day to day activities, but when asked their opinion of a certain issue, they usually have a pro-environment stance, unless they are just completely unaware of the issue.
I spent most of the break with my immediate family anyway. My sister has yet to develop many political opinions and my dad dislikes talking about politics of any sort, so that left my mom.

I’ve talked to my mom about environmental issues before so this conversation wasn’t anything new really. While she finds the state of the environment rather concerning, she does not think about it constantly and has expressed her dislike for the fatalism of many environmentalists and the make-you-feel-guilty tactics that are often used. Essentially she said she doesn’t like being preached to. In this respect, I agree with her entirely. Constant pessimism and environmentalists speaking about restricting waste, etc. in a condescending manner turns people off from environmental issues quickly. This is something we’ve talked about in class a lot and I do think that talking optimistically about solutions that are obtainable (like the Cradle to Cradle idea) will keep people’s attention better.

My mom, however, is one of the people who tends to fall into the trap of small actions rather than large ones. She says that she recycles, uses a reusable water bottle, etc. and from the way she discusses it she seems to think that in doing this she is doing her part environmentally. While these actions are a step in the right direction, I have tried to express to her the enormity of problems and how there needs to be change in many established systems, not just small individual actions. My mom is a vegetarian, though this is for animal rights reasons, rather than environmental ones. Still, it helps.