What do environmental awareness and sustainability have to do with each other? The answer is that environmental awareness and sustainability are two topics that go together. Without environmental awareness then we have no sustainability. A light example of environmental awareness is that we have 100 twinkies to last us for 100 days for 50 people. Think if twinkie lover decides she wants no part of rationing food and eats 20 twinkies with a couple of glasses of milk. That indicates that because we had no environmental awareness of the other people then we have no sustainability for the future. We did not practice environmental awareness therefore we will have no sustainability. Let me explain.
Environmental awareness not by my want but by per standard definition, “environmental awareness is the understanding of human impact on the environment and the commitment to adopt sustainable practices to protect natural resources for future generations. Environmental awareness involves recognizing, yes recognizing the delicate balance between human activities and nature, understanding the consequences of actions such as pollution, deforestation, and overconsumption, and taking steps, yes taking steps to reduce harmful impacts on ecosystems and climate. It emphasizes the importance of conserving essential resources like water, clean air, and biodiversity, ensuring they remain available for future generations. Beyond knowledge, it requires behavioral change, yes behavioral change encouraging individuals and communities to adopt sustainable practices”.
The reason that I emphasize that this is standard definition is because few people want to admit living in the me era, this is all about me. Do I have enough electricity for me? Yes, ok we good. Do I have enough water for me? Yes, ok we still good. Do I have enough twinkies for me? Yes, ok definitely good. Therefore, why do we have to feel guilty or deprive ourselves for future peoples that one, are not here yet and two, we do not know them. Most attitudes are “I am not going to start depriving myself for who knows who in the future”. We have all experienced the jerk in our life or the little brat that goes up to you and sticks out his tongue? You think, and then say to yourself, “for these people you want me to practice environmental awareness so that they can have sustainability”. We are asking people to ration and conserve for people that you really don’t want to ration for and conserve for because some just might be jerks. The first response is, “ I am taking care of me today and let those jerks and future jerks take care of themselves”. It’s not easy to get people to say, “some people in the future might be jerks however I am willing to ration and conserve water or whatever. AND here is the problem of how we introduce Environmental Awareness and Sustainability so that people will care. We want to get participation in environmental Awareness and Sustainability, so people care enough to say, “I want to ensure that future generations have water the same way I did”. How many people do you realistically know that will say, “I want to ensure future generations enjoy a beautiful sunset the way I have”.
In conclusion, getting off the me, self-fulfilling train and being honest is the first step to more cooperation for Environmental Awareness and Sustainability. I went to see the movie, Digger and this movie depicted very well our selfish CLOSET attitudes that we want, and we do not want to feel guilty about the consequences of wanting regardless of what can happen. The keywords are “closet attitudes” because no one is going to say, “I want regardless of what happens because “I want”. We, are all in this one planet Earth together therefore, it is going to be a we issue. One environmental issue in __ location will affect all of us. To change attitudes and change mentality towards environmental awareness and sustainability we start by being honest with ourselves. Yes, it is important to be honest with ourself. Do I care about environmental awareness and sustainability? We accept how we HONESTLY feel towards environmental awareness and sustainability. It is absolutely ok to say, “well actually I do not give a fuck about environment awareness and sustainability”. Let the people in the future take care of the future, anyway it’s their future it’s not mine, I will be dead gone. We accept that it is ok, not to care. No one is obligated to care. However, it is important to accept the future depends on recognizing, yes recognizing the balance in life. It is important to accept the future depends on the steps, yes the steps we take today. It is important to accept the future depends on behaviors, yes behaviors of today.
