Earth Week from an Earth Geek: The Holism Deal

 Earth Week 2011 has come and gone but the lessons learned can and should last a lifetime. If I were to condense the message and ideals of Earth Week and sustainability in general into one word it would be: holism. By this I mean that we as students and citizens of the world ought to be holistic in our thinking about the Earth and our human relation to it.

This means that Earth Week is a misnomer, as every week is earth week, every day earth day. Imagine someone with Diabetes only taking their insulin and checking their sugar one week of the year – it’s preposterous! The same goes for our relation to the earth: it’s year-round. There are no days-off when it comes to the human impact on the Earth, as Justin Gillis’ keynote address on global warming showed. This is no time to think one week is it, and also to be apathetic as climate effects are real and they are now!

But another aspect of holism is that global warming and un-sustainability in general is no one person’s problem. It’s a collective moral onus upon our generation. But this can be good news: no one is alone in helping combat this problem. We are all in this together for our collective future. No need, then, to feel overwhelmed by all of the neon lighting around sustainability – start small. Can you eat beef and pork with fewer meals and fewer times per week? Can you turn off a light and use natural light instead every now and then? Can you replace your used up light-bulbs with longer-lasting (but more expensive) CFLs? These are low time and energy commitment ways to show you get it and you care.

It’s not just about future generations, either. Extreme weather events are becoming more and more common and this is no coincidence with a warming planet. If you don’t buy caring about the next generation you don’t have to! In fact you don’t even have to buy into global warming to see that things like dependence on foreign oil are a huge expense and a risk to our national security. Energy independence, like so many aspects of sustainability, just makes good sense.

One final aspect of holism is that caring for the Earth isn’t all about just caring for the environment. It’s also caring about each other and caring about time and money. Wherever college students have to choose between buying their text books and skipping meals, a reality becoming more and more common (with Campus Food Banks cropping up at colleges around the nation), this is not sustainable. These social elements of sustainability are oft-overlooked and that’s anything but holistic. Also whenever things like more sustainable local products are too expensive for the general public, this is not sustainable. This is a part of why I am so happy about the Athens Farmer’s Market Double Your Dollars program supported by a $10,000 grant from Wholesome Wave Georgia that matches every dollar spent with food stamps (EBT), doubling the buying power of the less privileged.

Matthew Epperson, Blog Author
Office of Sustainability Intern

Holism is a word that encompasses all aspects of human ecology and sustainability, now and into the future. So remember: Don’t stop at Earth Week, Don’t get overwhelmed, Don’t forget about people or your wallet and Do have some fun in the process! That’s as holistic as our dear rock needs us to be, and here’s to our species’ collective delivery.