http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/

James Madison University - Index

James Madison University - Madison Magazine - Summer 2009 - Index

SPECIALREPORT
Resolving an American dilemma
JMU addresses a new citizenship through environmental stewardship and sustainability
By Andy Perrine (’86)
Often in discussions on campus about environmental
stewardship and sustainability Thomas Friedman’s
book Hot, Flat and Crowded comes up. In fact,
several times in this edition of Madison you will
see the book mentioned. Hot, Flat and Crowded is
considered to be an important recent addition to
the topic of sustainability. Undeniably, the author shines his very
bright light on what many believe to be a looming global disaster.
But comparing the
message in Hot, Flat and
Crowded to how Friedman
lives his personal life
reveals a very American
dilemma. Ian Parker of
The New Yorker recently
criticized Friedman
for living in a whopping
11,400-square-foot
home. Plus, he flies frequently
in fuel-guzzling
and polluting airplanes
to his $50,000 speaking
engagements and is
married to the heiress
of the largest shopping
mall developer in the
world (which just filed
for bankruptcy, incidentally).
So while Friedman
certainly deserves much
credit for bringing more
attention to environmental
problems, his personal lifestyle and the consumerism promoted
by more than 200 shopping malls built and managed by
his wife’s family are some of the big reasons we’re in the situation
he decries.
What’s your
footprint
look like?
Calculate how many
planets your personal
lifestyle requires at
footprintnetwork.org.
Try making changes and
see how you
can reduce
the number
of planet
Earths your
lifestyle
requires.
Many Americans — including me
— are like Friedman, perhaps just
on a different scale. Lots of us profess
to care about the environment
or proclaim to have gone “green”
because we recycle or use fluorescent
light bulbs when the basis of
our lifestyles is anything but. That’s
why I call Friedman’s behavior an
“American dilemma:” Even though
many average Americans care about
environmental issues and make some
lifestyle changes, if everyone on Earth
lived as do average Americans, the
natural resources of about six planet
Earths would be required to sustain us all. And that’s average
Americans, not Friedman Americans.
Obviously, as the middle class continues to grow in China, India
and in some developing nations, supporting an average American
lifestyle globally will simply exhaust Earth’s resources.
So what are we supposed to do?
Because our American habits of living are so deeply entrenched
and our economy is so heavily reliant on consumer spending the
problem seems insurmountable.
President John F. Kennedy
exhorted America
in 1961 to “commit
itself to achieving the
goal, before the decade is
out, of landing a man on
the moon and returning
him safely to the Earth.”
Some believed Kennedy’s
goal was out of reach.
But he captured the public’s
imagination, and
before the decade was
done Apollo 11 historically
reached the moon
and returned her astronauts
safe and sound.
Perhaps we are at a similar
moment in history.
Perhaps if the will of the
American people was
channeled toward taking
the lead globally on developing new clean and renewable sources
of energy and new modes of conservation, the average American
style of living could become environmentally sustainable. To his
credit, big-carbon-footprint Friedman makes the point in Hot,
Flat and Crowded that America can unify and renew its national
purpose by doing just this. An exciting thought.
You can see throughout the current issue of Madison how a new
sense of purpose of working toward environmental sustainability
is taking shape on campus. Professors, staff members and students
have initiated much of the activities related to this purpose. To
coordinate it all, the new Institute for Stewardship of the Natural
World was created at JMU. While its mission is diverse, one of
the institute’s main goals is to create among students a sense of
individual responsibility for the health of our planet, or a “new
citizenship.” This is a much deeper commitment than faddish
proclamations of “going green.” And if we’re ever to overcome
the American dilemma I describe above, future generations will
need to approach the issue with an utterly new point of view and
a true sense of national purpose.
PHOTOGRAPH © STOCK THIS WAY/CORBIS
SUMMER 2009
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