Week 4

Michael Maniate raises a significant issue dealing with the environment: the solutions and paths to curbing environmental damages are much more complex than many environmentalists would have the common person think. His article seems to serve as a rallying call, but who is he trying to rally? I agree with raising the level of discourse about the environment, and environmental change is driven by consumers. We should hope, however, that politicians and academics are having these difficult conversations already. And there is a fine line between “frank talk” and the Chicken Littles screaming “the sky is falling.”
I initially agreed and was moved by this article. Mentions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Paul Revere elicited that initial reaction, and as a student, simplicity has bad connotations. There are plenty of good points in this article, but the books we have read in this class are all available publicly. Environmental organizations publish on a wide range of complex policies. Maniates mentions the Live Earth concert addressing simple solutions; it was a concert series, not a symposium or conference!
“We’re ready for frank talk about how we best confront...the planetary emergency before us.” Academics and environmentalists all agree that we need to reduce carbon emissions, but if people who are familiar with the environmental literature can’t figure out the best way to do this, how is the common man? Analysis of a recent journal article in Science that declared biofuels to be more environmentally dangerous than fossil fuels was in The Washington Post and all major news papers. The environment debate is public. There is no giant conspiracy to keep things easy. Information is available, and will be consumed, by the people that are interested and will act on it.