@Oct … "The best way to make a real difference is to simply waste less food. When shopping the average shopping instinctively reaches for the best and the freshest. If instead you reach for what would otherwise be wasted your personal impact on the environment will be minimal."
We're actually close to common ground on this, so I erased what I had written and I'll try to build on that. The NRDC published a huge report a few years back that showed about 40% of all food produced and eaten in the United States is wasted by the time consumers are finished eating. That number, as you imply, is absolutely ridiculous. To make a long story short, their conclusion was that if this number was cut by 15%, upwards of 25 million hungry people could eat every year. If it were cut by 25-30%, hunger could be eliminated in the US entirely.
Altering consumer habits is remarkably difficult though. In this instance, trying to get people to buy food that isn't freshest - i.e. what's at the front on the shelf - is not the right solution. The grocers, stockers, producers, and farmers need to cover the great majority of that ground. The grocers in particular could do a lot with the food that they throw away. Food pantries have a good relationship with grocers but all of that food that gets thrown away at a grocery store could go to a food pantry and make a huge difference. I don't know why it isn't mandated that every little sliver of good food go *somewhere* besides the landfill.
There's more to it and I don't pretend to know what the fuck I'm talking about, but pointing again to consumer habits is the wrong way to go about it. It's a big issue that has huge implications far beyond you or me. It calls for regulation, the big bad word that nobody likes to hear. I don't know that I trust my government and I don't know if you trust yours to get the job done, but that's what would solve a hunger issue as well as a food waste issue quickly and permanently.
@Thucy … "I'm sorry that you're such an egocentric cynic, you may one day change."
Gee, thanks. I don't call providing for myself and worrying about my own survival "egocentric," though I will concede that my view on the state of our planet is quite cynical. You seem to be in the same boat, but for whatever reason, you're holding onto hope and love over all else. I guess that's honorable, but that's not gonna keep you or anyone else alive when push comes to shove.
People are surprised to hear about what I do. I climb mountains and hike some of the toughest trails in the world, and if you took one look at my fat 240 pound ass, you'd know I'm not in shape for it and I never have been. The way that I do what I do and the reason that I can promise you I am going to survive is because I will myself so much further than other people around me do. I get it set in my mind that I'm going to do something and I do it, whether it hurts like hell or not, so I'm glad that you're of a similar mindset.
I don't get how that makes me egocentric. I can't control you or anyone else. Why shouldn't I prioritize myself? It's not like I'm prepping for a nuclear strike or a zombie apocalypse, but if either of those things happen, I'll be ready. I care about everyone else, but I imagine that everyone else cares about themselves more than I care about them, and rationally so. If they're ready, good for them. If they're not, then they just don't care about themselves enough.
"You have a consciousness, you can't just weasel your way out of the responsibility that entails."
I take responsibility, 100%. I simply recognize that I and every other human alive in the last however many years have created this problem by manipulating nature beyond our own means. My consciousness is telling me that the proper solution, the one that nature deserves, is the one where we stop manipulating and nature decides for itself the fate of life on this planet.
Again, I'm not sure how this is so offensive. I'm not stopping you from doing whatever the fuck it is you want to do, but don't ask me to get out of your way.
"I see that they don't teach much about society in the environmental science program."
Uh, yeah, they do. Believe me, I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm not saying it's pretty, but I'm not letting you off the hook simply because you don't feel empowered enough to do something about them. That's you being hypocritical, egotistical, and cynical, to use your words. You just criticized me for not taking responsibility and trying to shed it and here you are not taking responsibility and shedding it on "social systems, dude."
"Think culturally, not individualistically - individualism is after all a cultural construct."
That's exactly how social systems start. Hell, you claim you're a "foot soldier" - does that not make you part of a social system? You might consider it the *right* social system, but a social system nonetheless. If you want to eradicate social systems, you either have to eradicate the social or the system, and, given that humans are social by nature, it makes a hell of a lot more to eradicate the construct we created as opposed to the one that nature gave us, so get rid of the system.
"If you care about nature, then why do you apparently see no need to do anything about the mass extinction of modern times?"
Because nature is a better problem solver than I am.
"Why would you work in conservation given your statements that you don't want to "meddle" with nature?"
Because I don't want other people to meddle with nature either. What's the point of preservation or conservation, whichever side you prefer, if you're sitting behind a desk and letting your ideals go to waste?