CA+-+Debate+3+-+Is+American+Culture+a+Sustainability+Problem?

Claudia Anzini Debate Paper 3 Is American Culture a Sustainability Problem? 3/23/14 Word Count: 1508

With American culture being at the forefront of everything we do, its impact has begun to take a toll on much more than just how we live our lives. The United States was founded with the idea of freedom from the British government and the ability to dominate over this newly discovered land. Ideas such as Manifest Density **[1]**, the belief that it was an American’s fate to expand and settle the west, spread like wildfire throughout the country. The United States then experienced eras of war and industrial changes. These revolutions greatly impacted and further enforced the notion that America as a country was a force to be reckoned with. They had new technologies and the ability to keep large wars out of their land. As the American power grew, so did the income of the American people. They began to experience times of great wealth, along with some of great loss, but always being able to bounce back. Now the United States is facing a new set of concerns, the effect the American lifestyle is having on the environment. This brings into question; is the American Culture the cause, or the solution to sustainability?

To really be able to understand this question, sustainability needs to be clearly defined. On one hand it could mean “the ability to be sustained or upheld,” while the more accepted definition is “the quality of not being harmful to the environment, supporting long-term ecological balance **[5]**.” Even if the health of the environment was not in question, the root of this idea is whether or not American culture can maintain this notion of reckless consumption with no consequences. This consumption though has not only begun to affect the environment, but the life and health of the American citizens as well. Pollution scales up from the smallest of creatures, through the food chain, and eventually comes back to the people who consume the animals that consume the affected wildlife. If nothing is done to stop or even reverse the negative effects that the American lifestyle has had on the environment, there is a potential for it to completely collapse.

Naomi Klein, in her TED Talk **[2]**, discussed Americans addiction to risk. In tracking the oil from the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, she discovered that oil was highly toxic to phytoplankton, which are a major food source for many larger fish. This means that these large fish are either losing their food source or they are consuming contaminated food, which can be passed up the food chain to even larger fish. Klein compared this scenario to Rachel Carson’s __Silent Spring__. Carson warned America of the risks of spraying crops with DTT insecticide, saying that it killed or affected the insects that larger animals eventually eat. This oil spill caused by the recklessness of BP showed that the American culture likes to gamble with what precious resources they have left. Another huge crisis that the United States is facing is climate change and the idea that Americans still can’t decide if it exists. They choose to ignore clear warning signs of the impending disaster, trying to push it aside and wait until the last possible moment to address it. Yet, with the potential for irreversible damage being done to the planet, American’s should be airing on the side of caution and doing more now to prevent further climate change. The burden of addressing this crisis should also fall on those who caused it, not the citizens whose lives will be greatly affected by it. The American mindset though it let us continue on with business as usual, there will always be new technology and resources to exploit down the road. The problem is the people know that the Earth has limits, so when will they realize these limits have been reached?

Naomi Klein’s argument leaves little in question about the lifestyle that American’s choose to live. I agree that businesses and government have more power over decisions that adversely affect human lives than they should. I disagree with her business as usual concept. I think the American people are more educated about the choices they are making. We as consumers choose which companies and which products excel in the market place, not the big businesses. With these tools in our pocket, consumers can make smarter choices and force companies to think more about their sustainability policies. From the other definition of sustainability, I think that Klein is just wrong. She didn’t truly analyze if the American culture could continue to flourish with this idea of dominating the land and making the best profit that they could, in a sense, sustaining the current lifestyle that most Americans have grown accustom to. If she really took apart the word sustainability and covered every aspect of its meaning, then I think her argument, in this case, would have been even stronger.

In Ronald Regan’s Presidential Cadency Announcement **[4] **, Regan addressed the impending energy crisis that the United States was facing at the time. He mentioned that a lot of the disasters that America was facing had to do with the government and the economical crash that they caused. He said that the leadership within America had failed its people and it was time for a change, with one of those changes addressing this energy crisis. The United States had been built around cheap energy sources and the global power to obtain more when local resources ran out. Unfortunately, the United States was facing this end sooner than anticipated and with the customary lifestyle, less would never be enough. Regan suggested that if he removed government obstacles, Americans would be able to make dreams come true and develop new technologies to get them out of this crisis. Americans have always dreamed big, there have usually just been roadblocks stopping them in their path. Regan prompted improved car technology, getting away from foreign oil sources and an increased demand in nuclear power. He suggested that since the United States was such a big power house, they should improve relationship with other countries, so that they might work together to improve technologies and find better resources to prevent this energy crisis.

As a motivational tool, Regan’s speech was very powerful, but for argument’s sake, it fell a little flat. He kept driving home that the government should be helping its people do what is best for them, but in turn was asking for more power and responsibility to be given to the government. He blamed the government for businesses taking over and causing the problems that they did, and in this he is not wrong. I disagree with the idea that government will be able to do a 180 and fix all the problems. I also feel that a big part of American culture is to have a very open marketplace where anything can be introduced to grow or fail on its own. Regan was correct in saying that government had hugely backed fuel sales and technologies that used them, but in a sense, he was suggesting that the government restrict these sales and limit the marketplace to only ecologically friendly items. This goes against the foundation of what America stands for, capitalism. If capitalism isn’t allowed to flourish in the United States, people will lash out and no problems will ever be fixed.

Chris Clugston agrees with this idea that the American lifestyle is causing huge ecological concerns **[3]**. He mentions that people enjoy not having to limit themselves and leaving above the means of the planet. This living standard has only been increased every time there is an industrial revolution within the United States. Clugston focuses on the idea that our resources, renewable or not, are still limited by the capacity in which Americans used them. Americans are consuming and destroying habitats faster than Mother Nature can rebuild and replenish them. Without an immediate lifestyle change, the limits of this system will be reached and it will cause both an ecological disaster and an economic collapse. Clugston suggests that the only real solution for this is for citizens to ban together and enforce major lifestyle changes across the board. This means living within or even below set standards of living, so that the Earth can begin to heal itself.

I believe that both sides have a point, but that the answer to this question is still very unclear. There is no doubt in my mind that Americans love to consume and will continue to do so beyond with the healthy for themselves and the planet. I also think we have the capacity to dream big, no matter the risk. These dreams and ideas are not always harmful to the environment and one day might be the thing that saves it. So if we continue on with business as usual, then the Earth will surely be in danger, but if we realize our potential to dream big, there might be a chance we can change things.


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 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">"Manifest destiny." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">Wikipedia //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny>.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">"Naomi Klein:Addicted to risk." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_klein_addicted_to_risk>.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">"On American sustainability - summary." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">RSS //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-08-18/american-sustainability-summary>.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">"Ronald Reagan - Candidacy Announcement." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">Reagan 2020 - //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://reagan2020.us/speeches/candidacy_announcement.asp>.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">"sustainability." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">Dictionary.com //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sustainability>.