Today, from what I've read, is "Blog Action Day," a day when bloggers are asked to blog about their efforts to make small environmentally positive acts.
I'm theoretically pro-environment. But I'm also lazy and like to be warm and such. I drive my bike to a trailhead to take a ride. Not good, I know.
I have doubts about any blog action actually contributing to meaningful change. Do that many people read blogs? Compared to the numbers of people who watch TV?
And then there's the blog thing itself. I'm sitting here with a computer on my lap, typing, with the TV on in the background, in a room lit by electric lights (the new, supposedly energy efficient type). How much extra energy am I using by being on a computer rather than, say, grading in the same room? How much extra energy am I using by reading the blogs about environmentalism today?
Were I a really good blogger, I'd quickly locate the answer. Anyone know?
I feel a little like I'm trying to write a Stanley Fish interpretation of a Herbert poem, a self-consuming artifact: my environmental action right now? I'm going to turn off the computer. (Admittedly, more because I need to grade than because I'm environmentally good.)
Oh, Bardiac! How can one argue with you regarding your analogy to Fish writing about a Herbert poem. That's not exactly how I would have expressed it, but it does capture how I felt about this when I started to post earlier this evening. (I still haven't.) I don't know that I have much faith in the effectiveness of mass-action events like this, but then again, it is amazing to look at all the people who have posted today. Even if it has only made a difference in the perspective of the person who doesn't normally post about the environment, it has an impact, right?
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about blog action day until I saw it on your blog and now feel a little guilty. Maybe that's the action that they're working toward: maybe guilt will not only make us use less power, generate less trash, and so on, but will also assume a tangible form and generate power of its own, if we can build a suitable Grand Coulee Dam to harness it.
ReplyDeleteCam, Thanks :) I'll try to feel more positive.
ReplyDeleteUndine, One step at a time, I suppose, eh? Don't feel guilty; I don't think it was well-publicized much.