TO THE EDITOR:
The question is not one of whether global warming exists, whether it is caused by human industry or whether it has a negative impact on our environment.
The question is how do we respond to something we may or may not want to know is happening — the planet and its inhabitants are dying, and its resources are disappearing.
While taking personal responsibility to live a more “green” life is commendable, it does nothing more than relieve personal feelings of guilt. The solution is not to think of ourselves as consumers and to make “smarter” consumer choices.
Consumption is the problem, and it has to stop. If everyone in the world decides tomorrow to switch to double-sided printing, then we have only delayed the inevitable collapse of the world’s native forests.
There is a wide array of proposed solutions, ranging from liberalism’s individual responsibility to a more radical dismantling of the entire capitalist system, but to pretend that we have the power to change anything by buying trash bags made with less plastic won’t do anything except breed hostility between those making the changes and those not.
And that’s a convenient distraction from the culpability of those profiting from these consumer choices.
Chase Debnam ’10
Mathematics
