Working Toward a Clean Future

Local actions are the best and easiest way to improve the environment on a global scale. As a previous student of an agricultural program in high school, I learned that the best way to learn how to do something is by doing it. Whether it was learning how to grow food or simply to respect the environment, our classes were mainly hands-on and caused an overall impact on my life. I learned that making a small difference in one’s life or community really makes a big difference in the long-run.
Teaching someone the importance of taking care of the earth using words can create an impact on anyone, but I think using real experiences, visuals, or examples that people can relate to have much more of an influence on people. For example, videos like Planet Earth give people a real sense of what nature is. Websites like 350.org help spread the word. Picture of a possible dystopia or utopia gives people an image to work with. Pictures make the idea seem more like a reality. They give people a pragmatic sense of wanting to do something, or perhaps needing to do something to change the world, even if it’s just one step at a time.
Everyone has a view of a perfect world, whether it’s a Utopia or Dystopia. For animal conservationists, maybe that means an abundance of animals. For hunters, perhaps that means an abundance of game. My point is that though we all, as environmentalists, seem to be striving toward the same goal, our reasons and therefore future purposes, are sometimes vastly different. This is why the only way of getting people to change their views or actions to a more sustainable, more “green” way is by uniting people to the same purpose. We can’t just tell people that we are destroying the earth or possibly causing global temperature changes. We have to show people that we are creating destruction. We have to show people that our actions can and do affect our lives, our health. These are not just global issues, but local too. It is the local part that I think we, as environmentalists need to stress to everyone.