Two Journal Entries - Essay Example

If the protection of the environment will be disregarded and we would resort to wanton use of our resources, it would take its toll in the environment that nothing would be left for the future generation to sustain itself except environmental degradation. Taking care of the environment however is a concerted effort and a global concern. In as much as we do our part here in the US, our counterpart in China or India must also do its share in preserving the environment. For what point will it make when we lessen our carbon footprint here when else where in the world is excessive. b. My persuasion is simple but compellig, if we do not act today, we will have another planet in a decade.

The damage is already irreversibe and the talks about climate change is real. See Katrina? Tornadoes, floods here and there? They are just the preliminaries of a damaged world. If we continue doing what we are doing right now, the worst is yet to come. a. Journal entry #2: Question 1 under "Writing From the Text" Hesse summarized the modern organic consumer’s pretension with colorful words such as the oxymoron green consumer, conspicuous and patron of the culture of obsolescence. These are pretenses because these consumerist habits defeat the very purpose of going green and organic of which it was supposed to serve.

As Hesse put it, “It's done with the best of intentions” (page number). Despite all these trumpeting about taking good care of the environment, they still “buy a lot. They drive a lot (page number)." Hesse called it the oxymoron green consumer because people still buy a lot of putative organic products not realizing that the same habit of over consumption is what takes its toll on the environment. As Hesse would put it "The greenest products are the ones you don't buy." Such, buying a lot, albeit well intended defeats the purpose.

This consumerist tendency is done through conspicuousness thinking that if we flaunt that we are buying “green” and “organic” it would make us feel good. The conspicuousness corrupted the organic initiative because it was made as a marketing attraction for even to consume more to the point that “we buy and buy and hope we're buying the right other things, though sometimes we're not sure” (page number). And this is highlighted with our deeply ingrained sense of riding the fad of replacing things that we still need.

We used organic and going green as an excuse to “consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate." b. I know a lot of people like this. My neighbor is one. Actually, I was thinking about her when I wrote this paper. When the hybrid cars became in vogue, she readily purchased one even is just purchased a huge SUV. All in all, they got four cars and two SUV’s and there’s just two of them (the other is a husband). Not only that, she virtually changed all here television with that earth friendly television and come to think of it, her television were just a couple of years old and there were five of them.

Just last month, she had her who house renovated (at around 800 square meter two stories) to make it more “nature friendly”according to her. She justifies her latest conspicousness that it is “hybrid” (for the new cars) anyway and for the replacements and renovations as for the environment. So the purchases were just okay even if they were not