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Over the course of the next two weeks, emissaries from nearly 190 countries will be meeting in Bali to discuss a replacement treaty for the Kyoto Protocol, which expire in 2012. Nearly all of the attendees agree that more drastic steps must be taken in order to prevent the worsening of droughts, flooding, extinction and various other natural disasters in the coming decades as the planet’s temperature rises. The United States’ delegates have the difficult job of explaining why we are the only industrialized country which never signed the Kyoto Protocol. As much as that galls me, it is not the particular issue I wish to discuss. The actions of the United States government hopefully represent the wishes of the majority of the people, so I am resigned, for now, to remain in the minority.
However, there is one side of climate change I think many politicians worldwide have been dancing around that needs to be addressed: individual sacrifice. The fact of the matter is the spread of American capitalism is also the spread of the classic American dream: the freedom to pursue what we desire. This middle class dream cannot be met by everyone in the world. It is simply impossible because the resources do not exist for it.
Our opulent lifestyle, which some point to as the reason for the spread of anti-Americanism, is usually admired and desired by even our political adversaries. The Chinese, especially in recent decades, have seen the rise of just such a middle class lifestyle. One concrete effect of this is the rise in oil prices. We cannot allow every family in the world to drive a car. Not even an electric car: Remember, electricity is also generated from the burning of fossil fuels.
What is the solution then? How can we encourage the spread of economic freedom and democracy without putting an impossible strain on the planet? The answer comes in a single frightening word: frugality.
By no means am I about to suggest that we should all grow our own vegetables, give up on technology and revert to medieval standards of living. I am suggesting that we re-examine how we apply our materialism. For example, look at the products in your bedroom: your mattress, blankets, pillows, furniture, etc. When you paid for them, you also paid for their transport from the factory to the store. How many of those products were crafted in some distant Asian or European country? Why? Does that mean there is no one in Maine who knows how to make blankets or beds? Do we have no trees here, no land able to grow cotton or flax plants? Just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it isn’t opulent.
Frugality means examining what you really need in life. It also means sharing, a word we apparently only teach to five-year-olds nowadays. What can you give up, as an individual, to help alleviate the problem? Off the top of my head: meat! Stop eating meat! The animals we raise create pollution and suck up resources that could be more efficiently used to grow other foods. Imagine your life without meat: Would it really be that devastating of a change? One thing that frightens me is our culture’s association of meat with masculinity. You know who doesn’t eat meat? Clint Eastwood. Neither does Alec Baldwin or Tobey Maguire. That’s right, Spiderman doesn’t eat meat!
It is so easy to blame a human problem on a non-human entity, but it really doesn’t make sense and is ethically unsound. True, our government could do much more to fight global climate change, but the more constructive point is, so could we. The government did not cause global warming, and neither did the world’s corporations. When you get down to the marrow of it, both of those fun-to-blame entities are built of people just like us. I would propose a small change to the American dream: The freedom to pursue what is right.
Samantha Edith Hansen thinks that even though Spiderman doesn’t eat meat, Batman could still beat him in a fight.
