Personal Uncertainty and Environmental Concern

I have always had a passionate interest in environmental issues and in climate change in particular. I personally arranged for the showing of Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” to more than a dozen local educational and civic organizations over the years. It always bothered me a little to see the lack of interest in these issues among the lower income and minority segments of our community. The standard explanation was that when you have other pressing issues on your mind, long range environmental concerns get pushed aside. I've always wondered how accurate that explanation really was though.

Well I can now tell you from first hand experience that there is a lot of truth to it. During the one month period between learning that my job was in jeopardy and finally being laid off, my interest in environmental issues essentially completely disappeared. Listening to my old friends in the environmental movement continue to discuss climate change issues began to seem as relevant as listening to a group of people discussing the status of public education in central Africa. Intellectually I new that it was an important topic, but emotionally it seemed like an increasingly esoteric subject of little relevance to my immediate and pressing problems.

It was very interesting to observe such an extreme swing in my attitudes when I stepped back at looked at it as a detached observer. To tell the truth, I felt a little embarrassed about it too. I let short term personal concerns override what I knew were long term vital public issues. The important observation seems to be that it's difficult for people to show an emotional concern for our long term public security and well being when they're facing a great deal of uncertainty in their own personal lives. Keeping a focus on our longer term interests will be both a public and a private challenge as we live through this period of economic uncertainty.