The King’s Green Pad

Both Annie Leonard’s “Story of Stuff” and the new Pixar film “Wall-E”, as of late, give me hope for a more environmentally aware society. Both of these motion pictures I highly recommend checking out if you have not already, for their honesty and insight regarding sustainability. Though very different in their approaches, both get a message across about sustainability and how, human produced waste can and has led to major destruction and unhealthy living conditions for every one of us. Wall-E is less serious and forward about today’s environmental realities than the Story of Stuff is, but brilliantly uses humor and fascinating computer animation to get the painfully true message across about earth’s future. Annie Leonard in the Story of Stuff is blunt and to the point about the direction the earth is going with the amount of waste we produce.

In several separate and recent conversations about the aforementioned, it has been said that these environmental warnings are: unhopeful, depressing, disheartening, over-dramatic, pushing that “environmental agenda too much”, do not suggest solution for change or leave one feeling helpless. Well, though these statements are referring to different aspects of different motion pictures, I get tired of these responses to environmental realities. I find it can often be a cop-out to respond this way to the warnings represented in these educational resources. I get tired of having these conversations where we think that by personalizing and getting the message, we’ve done enough and the helpless feeling we’ve gotten is an unfair burden we now bear. I think that the truth of the matter should stand out before any of our personal hang-ups about them. If we do not accept these things as true, quite obviously then we can not expect change.

What if we were to take this burden of knowledge, this cruel embezzlement of our ignorant bliss and collectively fully accepted that we simply cannot afford to waste anymore? What if our response to these environmental truths was less dramatic and self-focused and brought forth in our communities as neither radical or idealist, just unfortunately and undeniably true and in need of our full attention and care. There is absolutely no use in panicking, moping or denying the realities we face. What we can do is work to get our facts straight, to understand the reason for all of the ‘green’ concern out there and then share the truth in the most loving way we know how so that we can make the collective effort towards the environmental changes that are needed for the sake of the earth and the future of all people privileged to walk upon it.

Just some of my thoughts lately….

We need to lay our emotions aside and move forward because it really does not matter how these “inconvenient truths” make us feel. I believe we often think in a linear way which is then often incomplete. We need to complete the full circle of thought when we learn of problems such as the ones presented to is by the Story of Stuff and Wall-E and articulate not our personal feelings of agitation but what those disturbances truly mean for our future. By understanding and accepting the facts we have the power and therefore obligation to inform others, urge our leaders to act and to make tangible, personal changes in our lives. When we go full circle in accepting and developing an action filled response, there is no need to discuss how we feel and talk ourselves into a powerless state of hopelessness. What better way to move forward than to accept what we know as true and DO something about it.

This post was written by Justine Ann Vandergrift, a student at The King’s University College in Edmonton, AB.