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Our generation: environmental lifestyle choices
steve schimoler '08 -- guest columnist

“A bipartisan effort to do nothing has been wildly successful. The Clinton-Gore administration oversaw the conversion of the American vehicle fleet from cars to semi military vehicles, and a resulting 15 percent increase in carbon emissions. George W. Bush renounced the Kyoto treaty within a few weeks of office, beginning the downfall of our public image around the world that has continued unabated. His administration’s energy plan foresees a future where we drill, mine, refine and combust our way to 30 percent more carbon emissions within a generation.”  - Bill McKibben

The generation mentioned previously is our generation. “Generation X,” “Generation Y,” whatever we are currently labeled, we represent the most crucial generation in both American and human history.

We have been raised in an era that is unprecedented. We live in the age of instant information, where the ideologies of “progress” and “innovation” have produced the modern technologies we know, love and could not live without.

The development of modern technology such as cell phones, computers and televisions combined with the core American values of consumerism, individualism and “free market economics” was a logical match.  However this “union” represented a dark day for the human species. It represented a leap even further from the skewed “realities” of the industrial age.

We have a unique national history that shapes our worldviews and life choices, especially the life choices of our generation. I will call us the “computer generation” because we have grown up with computers in schools. In elementary school, middle school, high school and here at St. Michael’s where hundreds of computers purr all day, every day.

The first days of Kid Pix and Oregon Trail in the computer lab were the beginning of a complicated love affair that shapes the lifestyle choices of our generation. While cable/satellite television and cell phones are central to the lifestyle choices of our generation, computers are truly the most important aspect of our lives.  The effects of the naturalization and socialization of computers into our everyday lives is still being acted out.

Computers rule our lives and to make room for this new relationship we further strained our relationship with the environment. Knowledge of/from the environment has been replaced with knowledge of/from computers and computer-based technology, every thing we use.  

Computers are the best example of how the lifestyle choices of our generation are devastating for the environment and worst of all, we do not realize it. Computers have become more than academic tools but social toys that define our existence. Rather than having our knowledge of nature and the environment define our existence, the “computer generation” prefers to let their “away messages” and “Facebook status” do the talking.  

Next time, check just how many days you or your friends have been “logged on” AIM and think about helping the environment by turning off your computer. What is more important? Reducing your consumption (turning off the computer) or keeping your friends updated with your mood, status or whereabouts.