I came across this link via Mr Brown’s twitter feed. In this article, the writer reflects on a particular incident involving a young cashier and the use of plastic bags.
For me, this reflective piece really strikes at the heart of three things:
- A somewhat antagonistic approach by some when trying to promote environmental awareness and action. Environmental advocates must reflect on their approaches as to how they seek to (or have failed to) engage sections of society that are assumed to be not as inclined/aware about environmental issues.
- A generational gap where the youth are not fully aware of history (much of which is Oral history, that can’t be found in textbooks).
- Reducing consumption of plastic bags is only one small speck in a host of actions that can be done for saving the environment. Environmental sustainability must be seen in a wide and holistic sense.
Do have a read of the article here.
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I think now it’s you who has missed the point….. The writer talked about many ways that our generation’s Eco footprint was generally smaller than today’s….. We really now are a high consumption society – being green is now just a word!!
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your comment. On the contrary, I did not miss that point — it was clearly the most obvious of all, for anyone who would have read it. For my piece here, I didn’t want to repeat what had been said in the original article, but rather just add my two cents on it.
There is no doubt that we are consuming way more than earlier generations, but the question is why is this so. Its perhaps also important to uncover the flaws in how we are communicating how to reduce consumption these days. Those three points that I made were some reflections of this.