Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
The United States is (again) at a crossroads: We must alter our debt management systems, our personal living systems, our civic systems, our transportation systems, our power systems, and our work systems, and we need to do them all now, before we as a nation plunge over the abyss. Americans are directly responsible for many of the problems we face... like someone who recklessly runs up the limit on their credit card, we have used up our credit, and now the bill is due.
But Americans are also notorious for their fervent aversion to admitting they have done anything wrong, and therefore anything that must be changed. And Americans as individuals are notorious for talking the talk, but not walking the walk, and "letting everyone else take action." It seems every American has an excuse for why they can not recycle, or take a bus, or drive a smaller car, or use CFL lightbulbs, or turn down their thermostat, even while their neighbors ably manage to do those things. Americans have become the ultimate isolationists: Once their front door is closed, they are on sovereign territory, and no one can tell them what to do.
But if we as a nation do not do these things, we face complete collapse... and may take the rest of the world with us.
So: How do we convince Americans that we all need to take action, even when we do not want to, for the good of a planet? How do we invoke the "S" word--sacrifice--without being labeled "communist" and run out of town on a rail? How do we get a nation of people together, who do not seem to want to have anything to do with each other?
|
I'm sorry, but I take exception with being lumped into a group described as
notorious for their fervent aversion to admitting any wrongdoing, letting everyone else take action while making excuses why I can’t recycle, etc. , etc.
I am an American, and proudly so, but being American doesn’t translate into being irresponsible, selfish or ambivalent and uncaring about my impact on the world. I’m not perfect. I’m only human and can only do the best I can as a human. And I don’t feel that any other human, unless they happen to be the only
perfect human on Earth, should unfairly make a blanket statement that lumps us all into the group they feel is responsible for all the evils of the world.
The following is a sampling of what I have/haven’t done to contribute to the world collapse:
Financially, I have always been responsible. Through decades of financial struggling I have
NEVER been late paying a bill, have
NEVER neglected to pay a debt, have
NEVER bounced a check, have
NEVER carried a balance on a credit card, have paid off my home 17 years early on a 30-year mortgage, have
ALWAYS carried (more than adequate) auto insurance coverage, have
NEVER cheated on my taxes, have routinely donated to charity, and
NEVER lived beyond my means. Yet I’ve always been on the lower end of the middle-class income scale at best.
We’ve recycled aluminum for years, even though it’s hardly ever been profitable to do so. We’ve recycled newsprint, though it’s NEVER been personally worth our while to do so. We’ve used CFL light bulbs for years in every lighting receptacle in which they’ll work. They don’t work however, in lamps controlled by dimmer switches, but having dimmers makes them more energy efficient anyway. We’ve also had dimmer switches installed wherever possible at a cost of which we’ll probably never break even with their use. We have an automatic dusk-to-dawn flood light on the outside front of the house for safety.
I use blinds in addition to thermal lined drapes throughout my home which are kept closed during hot, sunny days and I use ceiling fans instead of, or in conjunction with air conditioning, with the thermostat set around 78 in summer and about 68 in winter, during which season I often use the fireplace to heat the main part of the house. I grill outdoors a lot throughout the year so as not to heat up the house too much in the summer (which can be considered to last +/- 10 months here in Texas) and to conserve energy that would be used for cooking. We installed ceiling fans in 4 rooms that originally had none.
We hardly ever water the lawn, but it still manages to grow and stay green anyway. We had both toilets in the house replaced with low flow tanks that have been “by law” forced on us as replacements only to find that they are not efficient, and don’t work the way they’re intended to. We use more water by flushing (even only paper) 3 or 4 times as opposed to the single flush that used to work with the old tanks. We replaced the shower heads with low flow heads also.
We insulated the walls and ceiling in the entire garage which is usually only insulated on the wall directly connected to the house proper. We replaced the original garage door with a fully insulated steel door. We installed radiant barrier and added insulation in our attic space. We’ve also put a new roof on the house once.
In the last 17 years we’ve replaced the water heater twice, the refrigerator twice, the dishwasher twice, the A/C system twice, the furnace three times, the bathroom exhaust fan once, and the kitchen stove once. Each replacement was more energy efficient than the last, although I must admit that was NOT the initial cause or reason for those items to be replaced.
We replaced our decrepit 6 foot wood privacy fence with a new sturdy 7 foot cedar board-on-board privacy fence.
And oh my ghod, that proved not to be energy efficient at all, but unlike the old fence, the neighbor Rottweilers and Dobie can’t knock it down like they used to.
I work 25 miles from home but I don’t car pool or use the HOV lanes. The reason is that I don’t live within 30 miles of any of my coworkers and no one in my vicinity works anywhere near where I do. My town has no mass transit and there is no service to anywhere near my workplace even if I used park-and-ride. I do the next best thing I can think of by altering my work hours so that instead of being on the road an average of one to one and a half hours EACH WAY stuck in slow rush-hour traffic, I’m now on the road approximately half an hour each way. Fewer emissions, less gas used, more time for me (how selfish.) But that means I’m on the road before 5 a.m. to be at work by 5:30.
We want to replace all of our windows with energy efficient ones, but before doing that we needed foundation leveling. (You don’t want to do windows first, and then level, believe me.) We just had the leveling done last month (11k), so now it will be a little while before we’ll have the funds to do the windows.
Aside from the work and replacements mentioned being done, there has been no remodeling to our home – no new kitchen cabinets or remodeled bathrooms or anything else that would actually visually increase the value of our home. I have no doubt that we’ve invested
MUCH, MUCH MORE in the little energy efficient things you say we should all do to save our planet from ruin, than we’ll
EVER get out of it.
I could go further and tell you of many other things we’ve done in this vein, but most of you have already given up on reading my ramblings, so there’s really no point.
But I ask you, what sacrifices have YOU made in your day to day routine life that I haven’t done, or tried to do? I can’t afford solar panels or windmills just yet, and I’m oh so sorry for that. I would guess that a good many of us, which includes the Americans on this forum, have done much the same, or even much more in their lives than I have stated doing here.
Painting all Americans with such a broad brush is very unfair and just plain wrong. I believe that we all do
WHAT we can, WHEN we can, by WHATEVER means we can.
WHAT MORE WOULD YOU HAVE ME (US) DO? I’m certainly open to suggestion. Give me a list of things that you believe I need to do better, more sacrifices you think I should make, that you yourself already do, and I’ll do my best to keep up with you. I don’t talk the talk without walking the walk, and I don’t expect someone else to do something I’m not willing to do. And to say I do otherwise simply because I’m an American is unworthy of you.
Is it just me, or am I reading a "Holier Than Thou" attitude sprinkled throughout this thread?
I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "let he, who is without sin, cast the first stone," and "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," and "judge not, lest yee be judged." Well, even ignoring any religious connotations these expressions may conjure up, I for one try to refrain from making such harsh, blanket judgements of others until I've walked a mile in their shoes. I would hope that before condemning me simply because I'm American, you also, would first walk a mile in mine.