———————– ** Fresh Green Beans ** ———————– Grown in Kansas. Eaten Worldwide.

Editor’s note: This an extended version of a letter to the editor that I plan to submit to Time magazine about an article posted to its site called “Earth Hour ‘08: Did It Matter?“. To make some sense of this post, I would recommend reading that article first. I would promise you that it wouldn’t be a waste of time, but that would be a lie, which is why I’m writing this. My column this week in Jayplay also discusses Earth Hour.

In Sydney, Australia, where Earth Hour began.
Photo by Jamie Williams, flickr.com

Although not everyone claims to be a treehugger, I am hard-pressed to find people who say they hate the planet.Then by the transitive property of the basic human need for a home multiplied by the square root of Al Gore, I can’t see why the individual is left out of the equation in trying to solve global warming.

In Bryan Walsh’s article about Earth Hour, he completely dismisses the importance of the individual making a difference. But Earth Hour highlighted just that. This event showed how easy it is to reduce your personal carbon emissions in one of the simplest ways possible: turning a light switch the other direction.

In a country that can hardly do the basics when it comes to saving the environment (Americans still recycle only 32 percent of their trash), flicking the lights off for an hour should be a no-brainer.

Walsh writes that we must “live like monks” in an attempt to erase our individual 20-ton carbon footprints and later says that that will “barely scratch the surface.”

But he forgets the point of Earth Hour and has fallen into the carbon-dioxide-induced dumps. The main point of the event was not necessarily to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, organizers wanted to make a statement about the importance of fighting climate change.

The biggest producers of carbon in Americans’ daily lives come from transportation and the energy used to heat and cool our homes. How can these not be changed at an individual level?

We can decide to turn the thermostat down a few notches in the winter and up a few in the summer. We can decide to walk or ride a bike to get groceries down the street. We can decide that we would rather have our electricity come from renewable resources instead choking down the pollution from America’s coal plants.

Individuals comprise the collective, so the efforts that we make at a grassroots level resonate higher up the chain.

Walsh may be right on one point, though: The statistics are monstrous, and it is hard for people to visualize what their 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions is doing to the planet. But this oh-well-it’s-not-my-problem attitude has plagued efforts to electrify some sort of global environmental concern in the American people.

Historically, international failures like the Kyoto Protocol give even more clout to the importance of individual action.

Although then-vice president Al Gore symbolically signed the treaty, the Clinton administration never submitted it to the Senate for ratification. President George W. Bush said he has no intentions to submit the treaty for ratification, making the United States the only developed country in the world that hasn’t signed Kyoto.

Walsh’s pessimism is not shocking, considering the message this country sent by failing to sign Kyoto and its refusal to take action. It’s no wonder Americans think we can’t make a difference when this cynical attitude dominates the landscape.

By ignoring the significance of the individual, Walsh defeats any hope that Americans can make a difference. As a world leader, this country has an obligation to take on global challenges and be a role model to other nations. The United States has the highest carbon dioxide emissions per person, so it is up to us to change our ways.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of green fatigue that Walsh mentions by constantly being reminded of the tough changes we must make to the typical American lifestyle. But what we forget is the new American lifestyle that we can create — a smarter lifestyle that holds us accountable for our actions and our only home.

It’s time that we face the consequences of our choices, and it’s Time that is informing Americans about remaining the status quo.

-Lauren Keith