A forum this week at Davis & Elkins College focused on the need to develop and implement more sustainable standards of living.
Brad Rourke and Sutton Stokes, two associates of the Kettering Foundation, facilitated the forum Thursday with D&E professor W. Russ McClain and 15 students.
The discussion was both a brainstorming session aimed at inspiring critical and creative thought about sustainability among the participating D&E students, and a test run for the information booklet Rourke and Stokes are developing for The Kettering Foundation. The nonprofit is focused on nonpartisan cooperative research.
The premise of the discussion was that local and global environments are becoming increasingly and dangerously unstable. There is a growing number of environmental boundaries or tipping points that, once transgressed, will have catastrophic consequences.
Rourke and Stokes raised the question, "What should we do to alter or improve our position?" They led the discussion by breaking possible responses into three bipartisan categories: the first proposed immediate action as the solution. Examples of this response plan included lifestyle changes such as recycling and eating locally produced food as well as governmentally imposed incentives for businesses to adopt green practices.
The second response focused more on economic responsibility and industrial and economic adaptability. It suggested that the best way to deal with environmental instability is to focus on maintaining a strong economy rather than restricting industry with a ton of environmental regulations.
The third response emphasized that to ensure the comfortable survival of human civilization, the individual and society's relationship with the world must shift to one that is concerned with the delicate, interconnected balance between human life and the environment.
This could be accomplished via environmentally aware school programs and increased opportunities for public service.
As the discussion addressed these responses, the students identified numerous pros and cons in each. While eating local food is environmentally friendly, it also can be exorbitantly expensive; a strong economy is important, but if its import is elevated above everything else, there will be little incentive to implement more sustainable practices; and it's vital to educate children about the environment, however it would be easy to alienate parents and community members who might interpret even the most scientific environmentalism as dangerously ideological.
As a whole, the forum seemed representative of many conversations about the environment taking place around the world. Its members agreed unanimously that something must be done, but they were unable to identify any particular action as the solution to the problem.
This, however, is not to be read as failure. The participants agreed that the forum was itself part of the solution.
"Discussing these things helps familiarize people with them. And these conversations add up. They get things moving," D&E student Susan Krakoff said.
"I for one, because of my participation in discussions like this, feel more comfortable developing and voicing my own opinions. And more importantly, I have developed my own ways of making a difference."
Rourke and Stokes' work with the Kettering Foundation is intended to open dialogues rather than provide solutions. Their goal is to inspire critical thought that leads to positive action.
More information about the foundation is available at www.kettering.org.
