...I feel happyyyyyy!But here I am again, and here's a bit from an email to a couple of coworkers, in which I was responding to the question of leaflets that relate to a current project and, specifically, how many we should have printed:
'So my gut reaction was to say 1000...do you think that's too much? Too little? A voice in my head reminds me to temper my enthusiasm for spreading what I categorize as "pro-environment" information with a recognition of the potentially environmentally-harmful means of dissemination, i.e. the killing of trees to make paper for printing. Does the awareness (and maybe change of attitude and behaviour) the information on these pages will promote outweigh the destruction of trees and whatever pollution is produced in converting them to paper? I run into this quandry all the time; does the "pro-environment" work I do in my job outweigh the environmental damage I do by driving my car two hours per day, 3-4 days per week to get to and from the office? In the men's bathroom at the Clinton Health Unit I'm confronted with the choice of drying my hands with paper towel (kills trees...or kills more trees in the future by more rapidly depleting the currently available stock of already killed and converted trees) or use the air dryer (uses electricity, which is usually generated at some point by burning fossil fuels)? I tend to use the air dryer because it's less certain that environmental damage is being caused, and what damage is caused may be more infinitesimal than that associated with a sheet of hand towel, but I still wonder. Maybe I should just wipe my hands on my shirt or drag them on the carpet or something. Anyway, I find these questions coming up all the time and I guess the most important things are to minimize environmental damage, accept minor damage only if it is part of causing greater benefit, and whatever I do, don't let myself become paralyzed by the dilemma, because someone once said something to the effect of "worse than doing the wrong thing is doing nothing at all".'
What a nightmare to work with, eh? That weird guy you ask a question and he turns it into a dilemma and starts going on about shadows, caves and sunlight. Sir, put the university down slowly and back away...
2 comments:
I engage with this every day in my classes (heck, I think I'm getting a Masters of Arts in Guilt). Yesterday in class I raised issue with an author who distracted readers from the main point of an argument they were criticizing by saying the use of the word "master" was racist (when using discourse analysis, it reveals connotations of slavery and oppression). The sentence was something to the effect of "do these things and you will master tennis". Sometimes academics cause more trouble than they are worth. In Community Psychology its called the "paralysis of analysis" and I rage against it with all my might. If you are aware of the issues, make your decision (what level are you choosing to work? sounds like you do great prevention - always better than cure!) and do your best. Don't lose any sleep over it, but you can always try to move towards a paper-free lifestyle (for example, e-bulletins?) I've got your back through all of this, anyways. And if you ever need to bitch about people taking things too far and revelling in the paralysis of discourse analysis or whatever, I'm your girl!
That, and I love the idea of you dragging your hands across the carpet in the men's washroom at the Clinton Health Unit because of a worry over trees. You monkey, you!
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