Why are people who spent childhood on a farm or near nature much less militant on environmental issues?
Many of these opinions seem to have little foundation in reality. For example, very few outspoken activists grew up close to nature, or had parents who worked in the natural resources business.
Whereas, those who grew up in rural or natural settings, experienced nature as a child and have more experience with nature and things of the wild seem to be more grounded and comfortable in the world. What do they know that the rest of us don't? Can someone explain this?
Answer:
I think to ask the question is to answer it.
People who grew up or have lived in rural areas know what it is like to bathe in cold water and to have no heat when it is freezing outside.
People who have lived in cities all of their lives have no concept what life would be like if we stopped the use of all fossil fuels.
Well I gre up in the countryside and now live in busy South London where you'd be lucky to see a tree! I do care a lot for the environment.I always recycle and try not to waste water/electricity. But then my mother drummed it into me as a child that we you must recycle.starving children in Africa, etc.I guess I've just turned into my Mum over the years...I wouldn't say I'm obsessive about it.but I don't like seeing people drop litter, etc..we all have to share this planet.why not make it a nicer place to live.for our childrens sakes!
Well, I spent the first 8 years of my life in the city in a really nasty trailer park. We then moved to the country. From this experience, I've noticed a 'glass-case' kind of effect. In school, they teach you that the environment is this fragile thing, something that needs to be protected and coveted, and kept in a glass case to keep it pristine and pure. After I moved to the country, I got out in nature. And nature is tough! Lemme tell you! Those trees, those animals... they are all changing all the time, adapting and growing to fit their environment.
I spent a lot of time out in the woods just watching. Pollution washes over everything, and the animals and plants adapt. Those that are unfit die out, and those that can make it move on with their lives, and change to make the different circumstances livable.
I think it's being closer to the actual order of things. Things die. You wouldn't believe how many animals I've seen die, despite my best efforts to revive them. And when you've seen it that much, it's just something that happens. It's not the 'every eight years somebody dies' that a city kid sees. It's the every day the fox killed my favorite chicken last night and this morning I found my favorite goat's stomach without the goat 'cause the coyotes got it and the the other day I found my turkey headless because of the wolves etc. etc. etc. What happens happens. *shrug* Life cycles, ever and always, forever. I guess we're not as concerned about the environment, because even if there's a part of it that dies off, there's plenty more where that came from, and it will change to make it work.
City kids have their relatives or a friend or a pet die every once in a while. They don't see it as raw as somebody who sees their own chicken dismembered in two seconds right before their eyes. *lol*
We are learning that our environment is finite and we need to
manage it so we don't lose it or ruin it. My guess is people
who directly experience natural environmental rejuvination and proliferation
are slower to learn (be told?) of this fact.
That is because their parents made a living exploiting the environment. Why would a rancher want to save a vernal pool if it means less productivity for him? Why would a Ski Lodge want to Protect the spotted owls if it means less money for them? Why would an oil man want to protect ANWR if it means he doesn't own as many houses? As far as outspoken activists spending time in nature, have you ever heard of John Muir? What about Jane Goodall? They lived in forrests for years at a time and were strong proponents of saving the environment. Many Native Americans live in rural communities and they are strong proponents of environmental responsibility.
Interesting question here, I've never thought of this before. Let's see if I can come up with a decent possible explanation...
People from the countryside start off with a different understanding of nature. They don't experience it, like us, through documentaries, statistics and green slogans. They're out there seeing plants grow, raising their own cattle, getting their hands dirty. They see how nature solves most of its own problems. And indeed, nature has a great ability of healing or even benefiting off small accidents. "themeindzeye" explained it neatly in a post above.
But. I think they fail to see the big picture. They take into account just their small personal impact on the environment, which is indeed unimportant. But when it comes to judging the effects of large communities and society as a whole, I think the city people are closer to the truth. It just takes a trip to your local landfill (especially if it's not particularly ecological like my town's). There are literally mountains of garbage. We see how stuff accumulates, we get to see the limits where nature can't handle it anymore.
Breathing polluted air all the time, the lack of greenery in the cities, all this discomfort caused from being "disconnected from nature" (I don't know how to put it in a non-hippie-sounding way) might make urban people more fierce in actually defending nature.
Also, things like how toxic is the smoke of burning plastic, or even the fact that it doesn't biodegrade for hundreds of years, are not apparent unless someone actually TELLS you about them. And this is where the scientific studies and statistics used by the "urban" kind of people come in handy.
Surely, what we need is an objective view on the situation. There's too much propaganda on both the sides of the green problem.
They grew up close enough to mother nature to know what a total beetch she is! They realize that Disney's Bambi was not a documentary, although it is almost identical to a typical Michael Moore flem...err...Flim. They also know that the natural environment of this planet is resilient and can deal with us. That is not to say we should not be good stewards of the planet we have been given, but we can use it reasonably and sustainably without having to resort to believing the eco wacko doomsayers are in any way right.
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