I was at a history museum the other day and they had a large exhibit on American culture during World War II. There were a lot of points about rationing, and encouraging citizens to use less to allow the army to use more to win the war. A rather large emphasis was put on recycling. Recycling aluminum cans to make planes, recycling waste fats to make bombs and the like. With posters saying "When you Ride Alone, You Ride with Hitler" the government tried to get people to use less oil. Heck, they even encouraged vacationing closer to home to limit oil use. They were told to plant Victory Gardens and they did. These gardens produced 41 percent of all vegetables consumed in the country during the war.
And you know what? The American people answered the call and reduced, reused and recycled to win the war. Why aren't we being asked to do this now? Not just to fight the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but to fight the War Against Global Warming?
Some NGO's are trying to do this like FutureFarmers (see the write up on treehugger.com) but where is the government involvement?
We have been inspired by our government before and made the sacrifices we have been asked to do. We have asked what we can do for our country, but we need an answer. We need to be told to do more than just go shopping to support our country (as we were told post 9-11). We will make the sacrifices if they are asked of us. Some private companies are now asking the government to emplace a carbon tax, some individuals and communities are making community gardens, but more can be done if more is asked of us. After all, as Rosie the Riveter said: We Can Do It
How about communal bee hives? :-)
Posted by: Allison | March 25, 2008 at 03:04 PM