Why Does Sustainable Development Depend on Individual Acts of Heroism?
The Sustainable Agriculture Farmer Joel Salatin wrote a book titled Everything I want to do is Illegal. The opposite question that seems to come up again and again in sustainable development is, namely, why isn’t everything that’s harmful illegal?
No, this isn’t about bringing back prohibition or wading into the waters regarding America’s drug policy. This is not about big brother or government interference regarding what an adult knowingly chooses to do to his or her own body. This is far more banal. From the routine feeding of antibiotics to farm animals, to the piles of plastic currently adrift in the world’s oceans it seems as though we’ve erected a system that not only allows us to behave in unsustainable ways, rather we’ve developed one that actually encourages us to act in unsustainable ways.
Take for example, vinyl.
Vinyl, officially known as Polyvinyl chloride is an unbelievably toxic thermoplastic polymer. Every stage in its life cycle - production, use, and disposal - is a never ending assault on human health and the planet. The chemicals in vinyl are linked to the development of brain cancer, leukemia, liver diseases, birth defects, impaired neurological development, immune suppression and many, many other disorders. Dioxin which leaches from vinyl factories is bioaccumulative, which means that as it enters the environment it concentrates from simple organisms to more complex organisms becoming ever more toxic as it moves up the food chain.
Vinyl is also not recyclable.
And yet, vinyl is everywhere. It’s used in clothes, upholstery, vinyl siding, children’s toys, vegan shoes, shower curtains (that ‘new’ smell is actually volatile organic compounds off gassing). Unless one is both aware of the problems associated with vinyl and makes a concerted effort not to purchase vinyl products they become a complicit actor in harming both the environment and their own health.
And it’s not just vinyl.
From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, unless one is knowledgeable and informed each represents a mine field of socially, economically, and environmentally unsustainable practices that even the most ardent sustainability activist can’t wade through without completely opting out of society.
It boggles the mind.
In short, why is it that the most toxic aspects of our culture are opt-out instead of opt in?
Original Post @ http://bit.ly/cftYpJ
