The American Dream is Green

1. What, to your mind, is the most pressing challenge facing the global environment? Why?


The most pressing challenge facing the global environment today is the widely accepted notion that more is better. According to most, all economic growth is good economic growth, and we constantly seek to expand our economy in the name of progress. The latest DOW, NASDAQ, and GDP figures are nearly impossible to escape in the daily news. For Americans, the main concern is how the economy is performing, not the equally important and inextricably linked concern of how our ever-increasing consumption will lead to global catastrophe if it is not curtailed. Admittedly, the "progress" with which we are so concerned does benefit humankind in an abundance of ways, but we often fail to recognize that this constant economic expansion actually diminishes our prospects for the future. Yes, economic growth helps to raise the world's underprivileged out of poverty, but we simply cannot continue to grow at this pace. According to figures published by the United Nations, the global economy would need to grow five to ten times larger in order to raise the standard of living of the world's poor to an acceptable level, yet already the so-called "developed" countries are overworking and over-stressing the world's limited resources and fragile ecosystems to the point that "the ability of the planet's ecosystems to support future generations can no longer be taken for granted" (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment). If we are to save the environment, and thus ourselves, we MUST exercise a shift in mindset. The American dream can longer be to have one's own mini-mansion, two cars, and a vacation home. The American dream is (or at least should be) green. 


What that effectively means is that we should no longer strive to consume so much, nor should the ability to consume mark one's success. Instead, our goal should be to use less, to be more frugal, to not live in excess. That means not owning a car if public transportation is available, whether or not you can afford one. It means reducing the impact of your daily living by purchasing a home of a size appropriate to your family and making conscious decisions to buy only what you will eat, to eat locally, etc. Such a shift in thinking is the only way we can save ourselves from the environmental impacts of the gluttony that has pervaded the American mindset since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. More is not better. 


None of this is to say that Americans are the only culprits of such thinking, that we are the only ones inflicting ourselves upon the earth's ecosystems. In fact, people in most developed countries consume far beyond the limits of the earth to support all of the 6.8 billion people that live on it. And, increasingly, the Indian, Chinese, and Brazilian dreams are for more. Their goals, too, are economic growth. They, too, are seeking ways for every citizen to own his own car. The point is that we must ALL stop striving to "achieve" what so many Americans have: excess. Certainly, I am not arguing that the world's poor (or the world's poorer countries) should not be allowed to raise their standard of living. Instead, we should ALL be striving for someplace in the middle. Instead of Americans having an average ecological footprint around nine global hectares while Bangladeshis have an average footprint of one half a global hectare, we should all have an ecological footprint somewhere in between that might actually be sustainable in the long run. We would need five earths to support a population in which every person lived as the average American does today. We must each challenge ourselves to live communally within this one earth or face the reality that earth as we know it will cease to exist.