BY KRISTEN KILUK
Published January 26, 2012
You’re on your way to class. As you reach to check the time on your cell phone, an over-caffeinated, over-friendly beggar leaps out at you. He’s holding a clipboard and reciting shocking pollution statistics. You focus your gaze on the sidewalk and quicken your pace. Ignoring your obvious cues, he pushes on with his agenda.
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“Without your help, we can’t make a difference! Show us how much you care about the environment and donate now!” he instructs.
How exactly will your donation be used? Are there other ways in which you, a not-so-financially-endowed college student, can contribute to the cause? And most importantly, why is he shouting so loud? Never mind those details. He just wants you to feel guilty, really guilty, until you fork over the cash.
When pitching views about the environment and public health, activists, marketers and others often use dramatic guilt and fear tactics to catch their audience’s attention. Though this can be effective in attracting people to the cause, it can also come off as pushy and irritating — and unlikely to accomplish much in the long run.
Fear and guilt-induced motivations to support or reject environmental initiatives are fleeting. These tactics are no substitution for solid facts, thorough research and sincere passion in their potential to change long-term viewpoints and motivate others to action. It’s time to look past such desperate, emotional pleas.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, agrees that nobody likes a cranky, preachy environmentalist. In 2007, while in Washington to meet with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Schwarzenegger commented on California’s strong role in the forefront of modern environmental progress, saying, “Successful movements are built on passion; they aren’t built on guilt.”
Schwarzenegger also compared environmentalism to bodybuilding, which he said was considered “a marginal sport for weirdos” in the past. But as with bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger thinks that the role of environmental issues is going to take a major shift.“(Bodybuilding) became mainstream, it became sexy, attractive — and this is exactly what has to happen with the environmental movement,” he said.
Maybe environmental issues don’t quite have the same potential for the literal attractiveness of bodybuilding, but they should be reported in a way that is interesting and accessible to the public — without making those listening feel like they’re doing absolutely everything wrong. An interaction on that note is just plain draining.
A Nov. 25 article on Canada.com echoes the importance of this sentiment. It uses terms like “eco-anxiety” to describe environmental guilt trips and states, “If you carry the weight of ‘green guilt,’ consider this column your permission to get over it. You can’t take care of anyone if you can’t take care of yourself,” Canada.com reported.
The article also mentions a recently published book titled, “Spit That Out! The Overly Informed Parent's Guide to Raising Children in the Age of Environmental Guilt.” The book was written to help mothers recover from spinning on the hamster wheel of healthy living advice and nearing a "green mom nervous breakdown."
Though we currently face many urgent environmental issues — non-renewable resource depletion, loss of global biodiversity and climate change, to mention a few — fear and guilt-induced decisions to make lifestyle changes in the name of sustainability aren’t the answer to effective and long-term action. Though I have the utmost respect for all who make major, immediate lifestyle chances in the name of sustainability, that process can be overwhelming and isn’t practical for everyone.
I’ll admit that I’ve taken on the persona of the unrelenting environmentalist in the past. Not always on purpose, but sometimes yes. It can be a force for good, but, when alone, it is less likely to have positive consequences than when coupled with facts, logic and pragmatism.
Ecology is all about trade-offs. Though some organisms alter their ecosystems more drastically than others, all species must do so in order to survive. No matter how much we try to become “one with the earth,” we will never literally be capable of such a feat.
So, chill out a little bit. Don’t agonize over drinking from one paper cup or give your mother the silent treatment for forgetting cloth grocery bags. You’re doing your best — and your best will never be perfect.
Kristen can be reached at kkiluk@umich.edu or on Twitter @Kristen_Kiluk.
