If you have ever seen the Disney movie Pocahontas you might remember Grandmother Willow, the full-grown willow tree that acts as the young Native American’s mentor. Grandmother Willow is a comfort to Pocahontas, wise in the ways of the world and incredibly up to speed with the rapidly unfolding events of the small village in which they live. I was a child at the time the movie was released and my family lived in a neighborhood where I ran wild daily with my sister and four neighbor girls. One day, we happened upon a tree in a neighbor’s backyard that bared an unmistakable resemblance to the fabled Grandmother Willow. We noticed that there were various layers of underbrush surrounding the base of our new friend and naturally assumed the twigs were suffocating the tree. Thus, we began a weeklong project of clearing the sticks from the tree’s roots, throwing them in a nearby creek and repeating the process day after day. We loved that tree and truly wanted to help her.
In actuality, by clearing the underbrush we probably created a dam in the creek that more than likely produced problems for fish swimming down the current and other ecosystems in place. Yet, at the time, it was out of our genuine desire to help a tree that we caused such a ruckus and got grounded for throwing the man’s firewood in a creek. This story is the best way I can describe my earliest identification with an environmental ethic – treating plants, animals and all of nature as if they had human characteristics and felt human emotions. My ethic has grown out of these types of isolated incidences and matured in a way that I never anticipated. I have moved on from just thinking that living things have feelings and it is my place to care for them. Now, I am learning what my place in the system is and what I can realistically do to help sustain it for future generations.
I have cared for living beings on an abnormally deep level throughout my life. On several occasions, my empathy for bugs has generated confusion from those around me. My dad and uncle own an exterminating company and one afternoon while playing with my sister and cousin, I squished a bug. After doing so, I felt so guilty for hurting the little creature that I forced my playmates to hold a ceremonial burial for the tiny ant and, to avoid further upsetting me, they complied. I still think about that day especially when the family jokes about me taking over the exterminating business – I have never killed a bug since that day and I do not believe that I ever intentionally could. These stories defined my environmental ethic before I realized that it takes more than a couple beliefs to develop one.
While I could continue to hold burials for every living creature that dies, I can be more beneficial to the environment by getting involved in social justice and environmental protection organizations. Researching changes that I can make in my daily routine is something else I can do in order to lessen the pain and suffering that I have so long felt that all living beings are capable of feeling. Now I know that whether or not all living things have feelings is not worth questioning. If we go through our lives acting as if some creatures do not have emotions and later we find out that they do, our years spent neglecting them will seem brutal.
In light of what I have spoken about thus far, my environmental ethic is aligning mostly with the Judeo-Christian philosophy we discussed in class. I have always been a practicing Catholic but never thought my religious beliefs had anything to do with my environmental ethic. The Judeo-Christian environmental philosophy emphasizes the creation of all living beings by a loving God who expects humans to care for the earth and all of its inhabitants (Warner). I treat these plants, animals and humans in accordance with this belief therefore giving each living being an absolute intrinsic value. According to Keith Warner, assistant director for Education, Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, and David DeCosse, director of Campus Ethics Programs at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, intrinsic value means that the natural world “counts for its own sake” therefore having “moral status”. Intrinsic value stems from religious beliefs and, according to Warner and DeCosse, some people grant animals intrinsic value because they believe these creatures have feelings whereas others do so because of a belief that animals are created by God. In my environmental ethic’s evolution, I shifted from the former to the latter.
The gradual progression of my ethic away from passive feelings and towards action based on those emotions has come from an array of eye-opening experiences. I attended the extra credit viewing of Living Downstream which actually became a turning point for me. I realized then that caring about people, animals or plants is not enough of an effort. The documentary showed me that it is negligent to solely care about something and not act on those feelings. The social equity pillar of environmental sustainability explains this ideal; sustainability and social justice are inseparable. For the second essay in this class, I wrote about Donkey Coffee’s sustainable practices that included the coffee house’s advertising for social justice programs in the area. Basically, in my attempt to research environmental sustainability, I inadvertently came across social sustainability – further opening my eyes to just how interrelated the two issues are. The more I am learning about sustainable practices, the more I am realizing that the reach of those practices extends far beyond anything I could have imagined before. The reach goes past the plants and trees and into the hearts of people.
The first time I viewed Food, Inc. I was in a social work class, demonstrating the interchangeability of consumption patterns for environmental and human sustainability. While studying sustainability this quarter, there were times when I felt that the course material was personally targeting my feelings and behaviors and viewing this documentary was surely one of those times. As most people probably did, I felt that the producers of Food, Inc. were speaking directly to me but not solely because of how I consume chicken. The producers of the film showed footage of the horrible treatment of chickens raised for slaughter; these chickens are pumped so full of corn-based feed that they are twice as large as they naturally should be and as a result can barely walk. I felt that I was the target of this documentary because even though I have seen it before and been a witness to the mistreatment of chickens, I have not actually changed my poultry consumption habits. Despite my shortcomings in this regard, I can exercise my ability to sustain our planet and its creatures in other ways.
The problem for me is not that I have no desire to do something about the harm that is being done to the planet and its inhabitants (human and non-human); the problem is that I need to get creative about what I can do because I am currently in the lowest percentages of income and cannot afford to live sustainably myself. Therefore, the question seems to become: which is more important – living sustainably or helping others so that they may live sustainably in the future as I intend to? Often, I choose the latter. By helping others, I am in turn helping the environment and someday those people can do the same. It’s the old saying: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Only, in our circumstance, you feed him, the environment and generations to come. For instance, I have often volunteered at the local United Campus Ministries’ (UCM) free Thursday suppers. This organization has been able to provide free meals to impoverished people in the Athens area who otherwise may not be able to afford meals. UCM prepares meals solely on donations and produce grown at local vegetable gardens. The quality and sustainability of this food on the environment is exponentially greater than that of local fast-food restaurants where those who attend the suppers often dine.
People have always been my choice segment for charitable donations. I care about the environment but I have learned that a change must start with humans. Therefore I support systems and organizations such as Friends of the Earth that give disadvantaged people an opportunity to make more sustainable decisions for themselves and for their families. Friends of the Earth, according to the organization’s website, is made up of “grassroots groups in 76 countries (that) defend the environment and champion a more healthy and just world.” The group is currently focused on a variety of environmental and social problems including banishing poisonous and potentially damaging technologies from food and other products as well as defending marine ecosystems and people who live or work in the vicinity (Friends of the Earth). This type of organization is imperative in the move from idealistic fantasies about how the world should be to forming realistic solutions to the problems we are currently facing and enacting those policies.
Out of my genuine childhood desire to help Grandmother Willow I have grown into an adult capable of revolutionizing how the world’s inhabitants and resources are used, reused and replaced. As I gain more knowledge, I also gain momentum. Someday I hope that I am again asked to write a paper on the evolution of my environmental ethic. On that day, my present ethic will be just as far behind me as Grandmother Willow and the ethic I will have evolved into will hopefully be one of direct action on my part.
Friends of the Earth. Youtube.
Works Cited:
“Who We Are.” Friends of the Earth. 16 Mar. 2011.
Warner, Keith Douglass and David DeCosse. “Who, When, Where and How: The Distinctiveness of Environmental Ethics.” Santa Clara University. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics: 2010. 16 Mar. 2011.
