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Doing What We Can to Care for the Environment Written by Michael Goonan
FEATURE
C
limate change. A hole in the ozone layer. Mountains of plastic in our oceans. Acid rain. Microplastics. If you take an interest in environmental issues, you’ve probably heard of at least a few of these. The more one reads, the more overwhelming it all can seem, and the more one might be tempted to throw up one’s hands and say “Why even bother? As an individual person, there’s no way I could make a difference.” I have certainly been in that mental space myself. Without a doubt, it is possible to find all kinds of justifications for eco-despair. But what if, instead of spending all of that time and energy finding reasons to lose hope, we each spent it on taking just a little bit of action? In the words of Desmond Tutu, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
July 2020
I know, I know. As much as I love that quote on my more optimistic days, if I read it in an article like this, I’d be as tempted as anyone to say “It must be nice to be so blissfully naive,” too. But hear me out. I write this article not as an expert but as an ordinary person. I am not a scientist, an activist, a philanthropist, or a public figure. In today’s world, many of us are fed the message that if we are not a “very important person” of this sort, our efforts to better the world are a waste of time. We do, however, retain an inner knowing of the truth that change happens, little by little, when we all make the personal decision to live it in some small way in our own lives. From there, we can get friends, family, and those in our community involved. And there is an unknowable ripple effect that goes far beyond that. It may not be immediately visible to us, but that does not diminish its importance. This line of reasoning can help us to uncover some hope within the usual frame of reference of our culture – a world of “winners” and “losers” – in which it is theoretically possible for an underdog to win out over the proverbial “forces of darkness.” But this still leaves many of us feeling a sluggish, half-baked kind of hope. We are “behind” in the game, as it were, and it’s not easy to make a big comeback in the bottom of the ninth inning.
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6/25/2020 12:42:55 PM
