Examples Of Sacrifice
Environmental Politics of Sacrifice by Michael Maniates and John M. Meyer explores a subject that the general public is aware of, but is often overshadowed by the effects of issue framing. In a world where each political player is solely focused on manipulating each event that arises into a beneficial situation for themselves, is sacrifice always necessary or it’s just how it’s always been framed by the major players involved? Does the world sacrifice so much to better itself or the lives of those who employed the manipulation. Maniates and Meyer begin their discussion with a strong statement, “Addressing climate change will require citizens of wealthy consumer societies to sacrifice. But that’s never going to happen.” It’s a powerful sentiment
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But remember this: a drop of just four degrees in average temperature constitutes an ice age, so 1° of Change is significant. Small changes can have big effects. When even a handful of people change their behaviors, the results can cause a ripple effect, until a “tipping point” is reached, when it seems everyone is working towards the solution. We wake up to find the world has changed for the better, seemingly overnight. (Maniates 294) Not everyone in the world is financially blessed, but that doesn’t diminish the type of impact each person can have on the environment. While sacrifice has been looked at very pessimistically, Maniates now takes a reverse-tyranny of small decisions approach. Instead of everyone believing they have a small effect and virtually no impact, people begin to focus on the small changes they can make. These positive small decisions and effects turn into a large one. If every new driver chooses to purchase a Prius rather than a Jeep, then each individual would be saving 35 city/ 23 highway MPG, even with the most environmentally conscience car Jeep currently has in production. Individually this amount has a low impact, but multiplied by everyone making this small choice in purchase could move mountains ecologically. Last year, 1,512,500 people in the state of California got a driver’s license last year. If half of those individuals chose to drive a hybrid instead of an SUV, then more than 17,393,750 MPG could be saved. Numbers can start small, but they can always
But remember this: a drop of just four degrees in average temperature constitutes an ice age, so 1° of Change is significant. Small changes can have big effects. When even a handful of people change their behaviors, the results can cause a ripple effect, until a “tipping point” is reached, when it seems everyone is working towards the solution. We wake up to find the world has changed for the better, seemingly overnight. (Maniates 294) Not everyone in the world is financially blessed, but that doesn’t diminish the type of impact each person can have on the environment. While sacrifice has been looked at very pessimistically, Maniates now takes a reverse-tyranny of small decisions approach. Instead of everyone believing they have a small effect and virtually no impact, people begin to focus on the small changes they can make. These positive small decisions and effects turn into a large one. If every new driver chooses to purchase a Prius rather than a Jeep, then each individual would be saving 35 city/ 23 highway MPG, even with the most environmentally conscience car Jeep currently has in production. Individually this amount has a low impact, but multiplied by everyone making this small choice in purchase could move mountains ecologically. Last year, 1,512,500 people in the state of California got a driver’s license last year. If half of those individuals chose to drive a hybrid instead of an SUV, then more than 17,393,750 MPG could be saved. Numbers can start small, but they can always