As an educator, I well appreciate the value of setting an example; if we all do the right thing (e.g. wash our hands, keep a safe distance, buy a hybrid/electric vehicle, buy carbon offsets, recycle [especially aluminum cans], invest in solar or wind or ESG stocks and bonds, walk and bike, etc.), we can make a difference in addressing the chief and urgent challenges before us; I am reminded of Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest,” in which so many humans understand and respond, that a wave of positive change sweeps the world.
As we discuss in class, the power of the individual, of individual action, is significant; consider Tony Fauci or Jane Goodall or Greta Thunberg or Wangari Maathai or Al Gore. Individuals, noted or otherwise, certainly can make a difference.
We must use the corona crisis to reconsider how we live, how we respect our natural resources, how we take care of each other and the natural world. We must place a price on carbon (e.g. carbon offsets), and capitalism must embrace full-cost accounting; as Annie Leonard well illustrates in “The Story of Stuff,” a $4.95 portable radio from Radio Shack actually costs considerably more when upstream (minerals extracted, laborers involved, transportation, pollution…) and downstream (transportation, landfill, pollution, recycling…) costs are considered. Social costs are significant and must be incorporated for both capitalism and our planet to survive.
To address the pandemic and climate change, realities “that will define the contours of the 21st century more than any other,” all of us must respond, individually and collectively, so that our natural world, one which sustains all life, human and otherwise, can endure.
Peter K. McLean, PhD
St. Andrew’s School
Lewes
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