The Issue of Indifference

I think that the most pressing challenge facing the global environment is indifference. There are plenty of venues out there for working towards alleviating environmental problems, if enough people cared enough to seek them out. The keyword here is enough. There are certainly some people out there who care a lot about the environment, and are working tirelessly towards making it a better place. But there is also the other extreme of people who can’t directly see the effects of environmental degradation, and therefore don’t believe it affects them. If more of these people cared, then we would have more fighters for the environmental movement. And there are the people who do care, but have so many other things to do or think about than helping the environment. If these people cared more, maybe their other obligations suddenly wouldn’t seem as important.

Although there are certainly many other huge issues facing the environmental movement, having fewer indifferent people would help us move towards overcoming these problems as well. More environmental stewards could help spread information to people who just don’t know the magnitude of this problem. Politicians would have an incentive to actually take action against environmental degradation if enough of the public cared for it to be politically beneficial. Also, more people would care enough to make even small changes in their lifestyle, potentially leading to a huge decrease in our harmful effects on the environment.

Stanley Fish is a god example of somebody who doesn’t care. As he says in his article, he believes that our actions are harming the environment, he just doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. Although his wife is trying to get him to make small changes in his lifestyle, he won’t be convinced. The environment is an inconvenience in his mind. It’s people like this who will be our biggest problem to tackle in the environmental movement.