Levester Williams
ADP III: Technology and Environment
You, Spirituality, and the Global System
With a plethora of information that transpires through our eyes every day from huge corporations, we consumers are focused on finding the “perfect” products that will fit our frivolous lifestyles. Most of us are not thinking about where the products come from, unless there is a recent recall on a certain products. Our focus is on buying cheap products, specifically food, and top name –brand products. Our ignorance is being decisive without being informed about the products beyond its advertised quality: “most environmental mistakes are due, not to some inherent baseness in human nature, but to ignorance” (Leopold xxi). However, the continuous occurrence of advertisements hinders the manifestation of informed decision to come to the consumers.
Having first hand-experience of actually making the product or being apprised of the products’ origin would widen our perception to its manufacturing and allow us to make a better consumer choice. Leopold states that there are “two spiritual dangers of not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace” (Leopold 6). This is just a metaphorical statement that asserts that, if we humans are not actually producing the products we consume, we are less likely to not know the cycle of a product beyond its purchase at a local or large retailer. He even mentioned to plant a garden, so you are able to dissipate the illusion from the “grocer” and recognize the importance of conserving nature (Leopold 6).
As mentioned before, we consumers are mainly concerned with the price of the product and its quality for us, not its possible detrimental effects on nature: “most of us dwell in the blissful ignorance of partial knowledge” (Steffen 402). Similarly, the actual supply of energy is no concern to us. This perception makes us as stagnant against discovering the burgeoning environmental issues and resolving them. Also, since nature is actually our life support, not technology, nature is able to be equated with our spirit. Without it we would not be alive just as we need our “spirit” to be in us.
Danger arises from not being informed about our products since corporations have the power to abuse the land by manipulating it with hardly any constraints. I must contextualize the products I buy into environmental issues since it has a global effect. Before that, I must be aware from the places that my things come from and the energy that I am consuming. This enables me to ensure that I make smart decision to save nature.
Works Cited
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.
Steffen, Alex, ed. Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st century. New York: Abrams, 2006. Print.
Weekly Response prompt #3: YOU, Spirituality, and Global Systems
ReplyDeleteI believe Leopold’s statement, “there are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace” is still relevant to today’s society (Leopold 6). However, I don’t believe it should be interpreted literally where as every one should live on a farm.
Instead, I think it is important and we are aware of where our food and energy comes from and the process that it goes through to get to us. I didn’t realize that most of our fruits and vegetables travel farther to get to us than is worth their energy. It really makes sense now that I’m aware of it. I tend to eat a lot of salads and fresh fruits since they are low in calories but I never considered that it takes more energy to ship them to me than they actually provide me with energy.
I completely agree with Leopold’s statement; after seeing the slides from Eric Schlosser’s book (I think it was Hungry Planet) of what families eat it shocked me how much packaged food American’s eat in relation to other parts of the world. Now I have been thinking about how much of what I eat is packaged or how fresh it really is. Even the salad bars in the dining hall have perfectly shredded carrots that are probably processed in a plant somewhere. I also eat a lot of cereal and after seeing the slide I question how many boxes of cereal do I eat a year? Is cereal even a good way to get whole grains? Should I change the cereal I eat? Seeing the purple box of Raisin Bran with the sugar coated raisins and the big cartoon sun on it made me realize how unnatural cereal really is compared to the original grain it comes from.
In terms of Leopold using “spiritual” in his statement I think he is referring to a sense of enlightenment. To me being spiritual is being enlightened to the ideas, teachings, practices and moral examples of a religion. The more one learns about the guiding concepts of a religion the more that person tries to change their ways to live more like the deity. My interpretation of the way spirituality relates to his statement is that by believing that food comes from a grocery store (and not a farm or factory) and that heat comes from a furnace (not a tree, coal mine, or oil field) is failing to enlighten yourself. This failure is dangerous because in many examples human ignorance has resulted in loss of nature and if people are consuming a product that has negative affects on the environment with out knowing it the cycle will never end. Through taking the time to investigate the practices of General Mills (the company that produces Raisin Bran) may influence my purchases; whether they recycle, where they get the raisins, treats their workers ethically, package the product in America, etc.