How do environmental issues register differently in different cultures? (Or do they?)

To begin, it is imperative to highlight the validity of this question even without the answer. The shear acknowledgement of the possibility that environmental issues, or any issue for that matter, could be viewed differently by different people. Often, more times than not, a there is a notion that all people think the same way; this way being “Western”. To recognize that different cultural aspects could impact the way people view the environment and corresponding issues is a beginning step to engineering solutions to these said issues. And let me specify what I exactly I mean by engineering. Any innovative usage of materials to solve some problem is the definition of engineering; not just the fancy projects built by the “greatest” minds in Western countries.

The true difference in how different cultures register different issues is demonstrated through how each group of people decide to move forward, or engineer. As demonstrated in the environmental fiction piece “Staying Afloat” by Angela Penrose, while Western societies tend to try to monetize and profit from sustainable solutions, poorer countries and people tend to find ways to prevail with the means that they are given. This short story also highlights how if a people are more connected to ancestry and the history of their people due to cultural aspects such as valuing family, they are more likely to looking backwards in time for a solution. This opposes the tendency of people who do not have family and ancestry at the core of their culture to try to find completely new solutions with a main focus on the economy. The globalization of ideas has made the way that people find solutions less polarized;however, this is not to say that viewpoints have become monolithic. The combination of different perspectives and cultural backgrounds to solve these interconnected environmental issues is the most efficient way to finding the means to environmental recovery and behavioral changes. While having a council in which people come from different countries to discuss possible solutions to environmental issues and the human health problems related to said issues would be ideal, there would be a number of political concerns due to the fact that any group containing more than on perspective must have regulations and mediation. And who would mediate? Western countries? Who would have the ultimate say so? Would this run like a direct democracy where issues are voted on? Which issues are valued first on the list? While collaboration would come with a set of concerns, it could truly be the solution to finding solutions.

Work Cited

Penrose, Angela. “Staying Afloat.” Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction. Ed. John Joseph Adams. Saga. 323-40. Print.