It’ll be hard to approach this response without somehow talking about Hurricane Sandy. It’s so fresh in all of our minds, and yet it relates to the subject of this course so very much. Sandy has taken not just New York City by storm, but the whole of the nation.
We’ve talked quite a bit about corporate influence on environmental practice and the various environmental movements in the US over the past century. But putting it all into perspective requires something very real to remind us why we’re all talking about this in the first place. Sandy’s destructiveness affected a great number of people all over the East Coast, and climatologists speculate that it’s very likely that the hurricane was related to climate change. Some have even pointed to the fact that this is an example of what we should expect in the decades to come. But Sandy showed us exactly what we take for granted and how we should move forward in the future. We’re taking this course so we can realize the potential of our actions in impacting the environment (as we can see it deteriorating) and how that impacts humankind as a result. It is to accept intrinsic value, while realizing the instrumental value cost that it poses.
One of my high school friends, Yana, posted a status on Facebook reflecting on the disaster Sandy caused, but that she also had something else important to say: “New York needs to come together, because the extent of this damage impacts not only the city, but the country as well. When the bills are totaled and the water is pumped out of the tunnels and streets, we need to take a good hard look at the damage. Instead of rebuilding we need to redesign.” There is no doubt in my mind that she is right. The only way to continue a way of life that is of the scale we are used to, we must either continue on the same path and simply deal with these natural disasters or we have to completely change the way of life that we are used to. The Principles of Green Engineering alluded to this on the level of building technology, but if we change the mindset as well, we would be doubly as successful. On some level, Sandy can be used as a lesson; we never want to experience anything like her ever again. We haven’t faced a natural disaster like her for a long time, and the memory of New Yorkers in this respect seems too short. If we are going to take a positive step forward, we need to change something in our physical structures as well as our mental ones.
The Conservation Efficiency and Conservation Protection Movements both have something to teach us. They grew out of a realization of a certain kind of necessity, a feeling that things shouldn’t remain the way they are. It’s amazing how similar the reformative voices of over a century ago coincide with those of our own. Except now, our voices should be louder than ever before. The end of the frontier signaled the start of the Conservation Efficiency Movement. Perhaps we’ve reached the beginning of our own.
Starting today, we should spur on this generation of Americans to start to feel the necessity of environmental protection. We’ve only touched the surface of the various environmental movements, but I’m hoping that we’re going to enter another phase very soon—one in which the people recognize that society has done wrong and in which the majority of people subscribe themselves to reversing the impact of humanity. Perhaps now more than ever, we need to have a messianic moment. It’ll be more than just a leap of faith; it’ll be an action calculated by reason and a desire to keep living in a world better than the one we have developed. The historic, record-breaking nature of Sandy shows us that the future is at stake. I’m convinced. I just wish other people would start to see it the same way.
