One student believes the columnist does not take into account all things surrounding the environmentalist movement in his latest column.
I take issue with a lot of the points made in Daniel Kington's "Writing on the Wall: Mainstream environmentalism is killing the planet" from Oct. 7.
While the free market system is completely antithetical to the ideals of sustainability and environmentalism, it is not wrong to be a conscious consumer.
I disagree with the notion that Kington makes when he implies that being a conscious consumer and environmentalism are inherently intertwined; I know a lot of environmentalists, myself included, who find the notion of being a conscious consumer frustratingly unattainable. But I would also argue that being a conscious consumer "collectively challenges large-scale institutional purchasing power" by informing "citizens" of where their energy comes from, how many liters of water were used in the production of their sweater, or how much CO2 it took from production to transport of their gallon of milk along a dairy supply chain.
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By informing citizens of such information creates a greater understanding of the realities of our economic system, which can be just as dangerous as the Student Union's fossil fuel divestment campaign. Being a conscious consumer is a form of divestment itself, call me crazy, and goes beyond literal consumption of goods.
Consumption of knowledge, of information. Therefore, it is pretty simplistic to
think that conscious consumption and environmentalism are synonymous. I would encourage the author to be more critical instead of taking the "overthrow the system" default.
Having such a narrow-sighted explanation and critique of the environmental movement ignores the disruption that being a conscious consumer can cause. Also, given that this argument is so exhaustive, I read of no proposed solutions.
Gracie Keyes is a junior studying geography and environmental studies.
