In
today’s world, energy is a huge topic in politics, and for good reason. People depend on energy for everything, from
luxuries like electricity to necessities like food. Humans have become more and more dependent on
living lives that require excessive amounts of energy due to the cheap,
energy-dense fossil fuels that they began to use in the early eighteen-hundreds. This excessive fossil fuel usage is not only
unsustainable because it is causing the human race to become dependent on a
finite resource that is rapidly being depleted, but it is also unsustainable
because it is allowing humans to overexploit the planet’s other resources as
well. This could lead to an energy
crisis that could lead to political strife, wars, and famine, as well as a sick
and dying planet.
For this class, I read the first
part and a half of the book The Energy
Reader: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth. To start, I really liked how the emphasis of
this book would be on using less energy and on the social and political side of
the energy crisis. The more and more I
study sustainability, the more and more I feel that the root of the problems
our society faces today is in society, not necessarily in technology.
In the introduction, the editor
mentions that the main problem is not that humans are using the wrong resources
or that they are wasting too much energy, but that they are expanding their
economies in a limitless way, which is overpowering nature. The editor argues that the main root,
therefore, is in the ever-growing, limitless economy, which is “needed” to keep
businesses afloat. Trying to create
technological innovations or make technologies more efficient are just remedies
to the symptoms and do not work at the root of the problem, which is
social. I very much agree with the fact
that these solutions would just be curing symptoms, and I would like to delve
deeper into the issue to really analyze what the root of the problem is so I
can figure out the best approach in fixing it.
Currently, I believe the root of the
energy crisis, which is part of a larger environmental crisis, relates to how society
has stopped valuing nature and feels disconnected from it. In Michael Bell’s An Invitation to Environmental Sociology, Bell discussed one theory
on how humans began to devalue nature.
This theory dealt with the transition from Paganism to
Christianity. Pagans generally believe
that there is a spirit in everything, from a rock to a tree. As a result of this belief, they treated
nature with respect and did their best to not overexploit it. One of the arguments made in this book was
that the Christian religion, where man is viewed to dominate and rule over the
Earth, changed people’s perspectives on nature.
Because Christians viewed that they were above nature, they felt that
they could do whatever they pleased with it; this gave them the ability to
exploit it. The evidence given discussed
how certain technological advancements were made in Christian areas, such as
the moldboard plow, which tore up the soil and probably would have been
unacceptable to Pagans at the time (Bell 154-155).
Whether this theory is true or not
is debatable, but the point is that at some point in history, people stopped
valuing the environment and stopped feeling a connection to it. People do not willingly destroy things that
they truly value, yet the environment is degraded all of the time and most
people do not even shrug. If more people
cared and felt connected, they would make better daily decisions to help the
environment, support the correct businesses to help the environment, and maybe
even become politically active to help the environment.
Although it is hard to describe why
nature itself has inert value, I really liked and agreed with how Sandra
Lubarsky described it in Life Affirming
Beauty. She argued that there is a
relationship between sustainability and beauty.
Although people say that aesthetics are not objective, she argues that
nobody would ever argue that mountaintop removal is beautiful. Lubarsky argued against the idea that “beauty
is in the eye of the beholder” because if that is the case, then people are
giving value, in the form of beauty, to different objects. In reality, all things have aesthetic worth and
value and people’s personal values do not affect that worth. Lubarsky basically argues that life and
beauty are linked and all life should be valued. I liked that description of beauty a lot
because if other people viewed life that way, people wouldn’t only care for the
environment, but they also would care for each other more.
Bell, Michael M.
An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. 4th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE
Publications, 2012. Print.
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