Experts have noted five stages an individual goes through on his or her way to an environmental breakdown.
Stage 1: Mild Envirowareness.
The first time the light goes on, although dimly, in the head of the person who up to this point has lived as if the world was his own big, personal garbage can. One day, he suddenly feels an uncomfortable twinge of guilt as he drives along in his large, gas-guzzling auto, throwing cigarette packages, pop cans and fast-food containers out the window and onto the road. He tries to dismiss the bad feeling but is alarmed to find out it won’t go away. The next day, when he throws an empty potato chip bag on his neighbour’s lawn as he walks across it, the feeling comes back.
Stage 2: Strong Enviroappetite.
Having always laughed off “bad news” accounts from that bunch of Chicken Littles known as “environmentalists” who are forever sure the sky is falling, our hero starts to believe that the sky, if it isn’t falling, might at least have a hole in it. He watches his lawns turn brown through a couple of successive summer droughts, wonders why he owns a snow shovel through a couple of successive balmy winters, and suddenly, the “greenhouse effect” is not just another fancy, scientific term. Alarmed that the beautiful world he’s always enjoyed might soon be ruined forever, he begins to read everything he sees on the subject. In fact, he can’t seem to get enough information.
Stage 3: Daily Enviroaction.
Little by little, our hero starts thinking of ways he can stop polluting the world around him. He buys a composter so his yard and kitchen waste won’t have to go to a landfill site, buys garbage cans so he can get away from putting his refuse in plastic bags and leaves his leaves on his lawn instead of sending them off to the dump. Gradually, he stops buying products that are overpackaged, quits lighting up his house like a shopping mall every night and dutifully fills his recycling box with bottles, cans and newspapers. He even starts speaking out against all the waste produced by the consumer society of which he is a part.
Stage 4: Severe Enviromentia
By this point, our hero bears little resemblance to the man he was in Stage 1. He wears a beard, now, so he won’t have to use shaving cream and disposable razor blades. He won’t use deodorants or anything else that comes in a plastic container. He uses only buses, trains, his bicycle, and his legs for transportation. He re-uses everything he can, hardly ever throws anything out and walks around in his dimly lit house at night, wearing a heavy sweater in winter so he can keep the heat down. Though he may be saving the world, it sometimes seems as if he’s losing himself, for he rarely smiles now and has taken to arguing with his old friends who aren’t so “eco-conscious.” His belligerence does more harm than good.
Stage 5: Productive Environlightenment.
Having come to the realization that this saving of Earth is too big a job for one person and having decided there should be room on this planet for humans as well as for animals, plants and water, our hero chooses to keep his own backyard clean without poking his nose too strenuously into his neighbours’ business. He joins an environment group, speaks out calmy about issues so as to make friends for his cause instead of enemies and learns to smile again.
For, although it’s been smudged up a lot, he realizes the world is still a wonderful place.
©1990 Jim Hagarty
