The collection of six books incorporated into the environmental contract project have taught me an enormous amount about the environmental problems facing us as well as providing an array of resolutions for resolving those problems. While many present scenarios that range from doom-and-gloom to Pollyanna-like optimism, these authors take a middle-road approach that tries to resolve these issues in light of certain and specific current realities. By addressing these realities, I hope to demonstrate the main concepts and lessons this contract has afforded me:
PREVENTION VS. CONTROL: Despite decades of efforts and billions of dollars in cost, environmental policies in the U.S. have failed miserably. The only way to protect the environment is to promote a course of prevention as opposed to one of control. Policies with respect to pollution, toxins, and waste need constructed in line with such a view.
PRODUCTION & MATERIALISM: American and industrial systems of production and economies are combative and in opposition to the ecosystem. Technosystems currently vie with ecosystems instead of modifying technosystems to be compatible and in harmony with the environment. Further, environmental policies are not as is generally assumed detrimental to material gain.
CORPORATE CONTROL & PRIVATE OWNERSHIP: Values and ideologies inherently rooted in democratic and capitalist market economies are detrimental to the environment because they allow for private ownership. This produces power in the hands of a wealthy few whose policies obligate masses of people to become complicit in environmental destruction. Social policies with respect to environmental policies must be pursued.
GOVERNMENT POLICY & PERSPECTIVE: Government policies and perspectives must also change. First, governments must understand the significance of immediate action being taken with respect to population control. They must v
...