During my last floor meeting at Brookdale the RA brought up the issue of our kitchen’s hygiene. It is terrible. The last time I made coffee the counter was littered with rice, the sink was a brown pool, and the surface of the heating coil bubbled with some white frothy unknown substance that, when burned, smelled like the smoke emissions from firecrackers. During the meeting everyone nodded his or her head in agreement. Yes, it is disgusting. Yes, anyone who uses the kitchen should clean it up. Yes, if we see something dirty, wipe it down. Then the RA asked who is going to clean it up. Someone said whoever was cooking in there last is responsible. The person who used it last piped in saying that it was dirty before she even started cooking in there. In the end, They did not move. Everyone agreed that it was dirty; no one agreed to clean it; and the kitchen is like that to this day.
This is how we treat environmental responsibility. Recall the infamous illustration of the “Boss Tweed Ring,” where all the guilty men are in a circle and pointing to the man on their right. In this illustration, who is guilty? The New Bedford case study shows us how the current status of an environment is the result of years and years of pollutants and not the result of one accident. One company did not cause the change in New Bedford’s watershed, but a multitude of people and jobs did. Who is responsible? The answer to this question is simple: Everyone.
But who will act? Many of the companies in New Bedford have changed hands, left the city, or gone out of business. Is it right to punish a company today for unknown crimes it did yesterday? If it is not, then what is the alternative? There is, however, an even more important question. While it may be easy to place the blame on an individual, how will we shift the paradigm of correct behavior? If it took years of incorrect practice to pollute the environment it will take years of correct practice to stabilize it. People will be looking for a quick fix solution to a larger problem.
For example, during last week’s lecture we spoke about the carbon dioxide absorption into the ocean. Many of the solutions proposed a way to fix the change in acidity of the ocean. But what then? If there are still high levels of carbon dioxide in the air, the same problem will arise again and again and again. The solution to this is come up with a long-lasting sustainable change in way we use the earth’s resources.
What is sad about my anecdote is that the kitchen was cleaned up, but not by any of the residents. Every other morning a cleaning lady comes in to wipe down all the surfaces and makes the kitchen look like it was newly installed the night before. This is sad because the Earth has no equivalent. The solution for cleaning the kitchen is the same for cleaning the Earth. If we can change the way we use the kitchen everyday and take immediate responsibility of the mess we create, sustainable change can occur.
