This post is the next step. You now know to some extent the severity of the climate crisis and how to acknowledge that without introducing anxiety and dread. You also can acknowledge the importance of the climate crisis and its impact in your life on a personal level. Now we need to tackle how conservation is a public responsibility. The climate crisis is the responsibility of every person on this planet in varying levels. The governing powers, the 1%, and major companies are responsible for a majority of the negative actions resulting in the climate crisis. Each and every person on the planet impact the climate in some way, and so each and every person has a public responsibility to work on reversing the climate crisis. To explain public environmental responsibility I look to several leaders throughout history.
North Dakota has a deep history of conservation and environmentalism, due in part to the state's connection to former president Theodore Roosevelt. The rural areas of this state have not forgotten their conservationist roots, as the life of a farmer is inherently tied to taking care of the land that provides for millions. Suburban areas, however, are lost in a pattern of willful ignorance, supported by a sea of concrete and monoculture. The aim of this post is to remind Americans of the importance of public conservation acts in suburban areas by first using North Dakota's favorite president.
My argument is that conservation is a public, individual duty. That there is always something that each person can do to help slow the impacts of climate change, extinction, etc. In his opening speech of the first Governor's Conference on Conservation in 1908, Theodore Roosevelt championed the very same argument about natural resource management. Roosevelt closed out his opening address with a call for patriotic duty and individual responsibility of the everyday citizen with the following statement.
"We are coming to recognize as never before the right of the Nation to guard its own future in the essential matter of natural resources. In the past we have admitted the right of the individual to injure the future of the Republic for his own present profit. The time has come for a change. As a people we have the right and duty...to protect ourselves and our children against the wasteful development of our natural resources, whether that waste is caused by the actual destruction of such resources or by making them impossible to development hereafter."
The impact of Theodore Roosevelt's opening address and this conference can be traced through the national parks program, forest service conservation acts, and much of the United States' natural resource conservation efforts. Roosevelt's words are truer today than ever before, in part because we have spent so much time ignoring calls to action from numerous leaders like Theodore Roosevelt. So, what can we do to make it right, to listen to Roosevelt's words and protect natural resources, specifically native plants and flowers and pollinators in North Dakota? Luckily, there is so much everyone can do within their own neighborhood, in the form of their lawn and lawn care.
Theodore Roosevelt is not the only source of what is being coined as "Environmental Leadership". While the other authors, activists, and philosophers that are mentioned here are not specifically tied with North Dakota, their words can be tied to the land with just as much severity as the former president. My information on these authors and their work is condensed into the "Penguin Classics Green Ideas Series". This series simply compiles a few of each authors best known works and by no means a comprehensive review of their careers. I recommend starting with the "Green Ideas Series", and research and dive deeper into any authors that really catch your attention.
Edward Wilson is one of the world's best biologists and naturalists. He has advocated for environmental and human ethics throughout his career. His contribution to the "Green Ideas Series" is titled Every Species is a Masterpiece, and "brings together some of Wilson's most profound and significant writings on the rich diversity of life on Earth, our place in it and our obligation to conserve the planet's fragile ecosystem." Edward Wilson is most known for his term Biophilia, which he defines as "the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms ... not a single instinct but a complex of learning rules that can be teased apart and analyzed individually" (Wilson, 46). So, what does Edward Wilson say about public, individual responsibility of conservation? Well, Wilson suggests that,
"... we think more carefully and turn philosophy to the central questions of human origins in the wild environment. We do not understand ourselves yet and descend farther from heaven's air if we forget how much the natural world means to us. Signals abound that the loss of life's diversity endangers not just the body but the spirit. if the much is true, the changes occuring now will visit harm on all generations to come" (Wilson, 43).
Also arguing for a deeper connection with nature and an individual sense of environmental responsibility is philosopher Arne Naess, the developer of "deep ecology." Deep ecology is a fascinating theory and I encourage you to watch this free documentary
The Call of the Mountain Arne Naess and the Deep Ecology Movement. What is important to public responsibility of conservation from the works of Arne Naess is his statement in the short work
There is No Point of No Return that,
"We need environmental ethics, but when people feel that they unselfishly give up, or even sacrifices, their self-interests to show love for nature, this is probably, in the long run, a treacherous basis for conservation. Through identification, they may come to see that their own interests are served by conservation, through genuine self-love, the love of a widened and deepened self" (Naess, 29).
The important takeaway from this quote is that the acknowledgement of the climate crisis and individual responsibility to the environment are only the first two steps in understanding your personal connection to conservation. Unless you take the final step to connect your life with nature and the planet so that you are understanding caring for the environment is also ensuring care for your future self, your happiness and contentment has the possibility to suffer. This is completely unintentional, but luckily avoidable if you view conservation as an act of leadership and a personal responsibility to others and yourself.
My final example of an environmental leader who understands the importance of the public's responsibility to conservation is a young but accomplished activist Greta Thunberg. Her "Green Ideas Series" work, No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference, is a compilation of her transcripts from the speeches she has made across the world advocating for every single person to open their eyes and give their focus to the seriousness of the climate crisis. Greta Thunberg's philosophy is direct and simple,
"The bigger your carbon footprint - the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform - the bigger your responsibility ... I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic ... And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis ... Because it is" (Thunberg, 14-15).
This speech is titled
Our House is On Fire, and the whole speech is a powerful argument for personal action and responsibility. What all four of these environmental leaders have in common is that throughout their careers they have realized and advocated for individual public responsibility of conservation. There are hundreds of people across disciplines around the world that are shouting the same argument in their own words. It is our responsibility as a society, as a privileged group able to live comfortably in urban areas, to first listen to these people and to the science of the climate crisis, and then do everything within our individual abilities to act.
The next post is titled "The Typical Suburban Lawn" and will give insight into why urban areas have monoculture lawns, and the cultural act of the typical lawn aesthetic.
Article Sources:
United States Congress. "Theodore Roosevelt and the conservation movement."
1958 Theodore Roosevelt Centennial Symposium, 18 Aug. 1958, Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library, Dickinson State University,
Thunberg, Greta. “No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference.” Penguin Classics Green Ideas Series, Penguin Random House, 2021. Print.
Naess, Arne. “There is No Point of No Return.” Penguin Classics Green Ideas Series, Penguin Random House, 2021. Print.
Wilson, Edward O. “Every Species is a Masterpiece.” Penguin Classics Green Ideas Series, Penguin Random House, 2021. Print.
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