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Cultivating New Ecological Habits

After listening to this week’s New Yorker comment podcast entitled “Economy vs. Environment” by David Owen, I was struck by three things. 

First, economic prosperity is dirty.  Owens says that “the principle source of [hu]man-made greenhouse gases has always been prosperity.”  The advantage of the current economic downturn is that it has slowed the carbon clock a bit.

Second, new technologies won’t solve our global warming problem.  As Owens suggests, getting increased miles to the gallon is no help if it encourages people to drive more; having electric cars will not help if the electricity is produced by fossil fueled power plants and if we continue, as he writes, “sprawling across the face of the planet, promoting forms of development that are inherently and catastrophically wasteful.”

Finally, the real solution to the energy and global warming crisis lies in the transformation of human habits.  Our habits must change. We must cultivate more sustainable ways of acting and thinking, habits that allow us to live in a more symbiotic way with the planet that sustains us.

To begin, let’s figure out how to live closer to where we work.  Let’s ride public transportation when we can, even if it is inconvenient.  Let’s convince our political representatives that it is in our best interest to pay for and otherwise support things that cultivate habits that support a more symbiotic way of living in the world.

If economic flourishing is going to promote ecological prosperity, the new, green economy will have to serve a whole new set of human habits oriented toward a mutually sustaining relationship between the world and its human co-habitants.

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