Sense of Place Interview

My grandmother does not live close to me so I emailed her the following questions and below is her repsonse.

What is your philosophy on sustainability, ecological perspective and sense of place? How did your upbringing differ from mine? From what I have told you about the class I am taking, what is your perspective on what I have been learning about this semester?


"I feel that we, in the world, are not being smart about our future. Most of us seem to only worry about the here and now. We want cheap energy sources and don't necessarily concern ourselves with the consequences. At the turn of the century we had few cars or other means of polluting the earth. In a relatively short amount of time we have developed conveniences that put a strain on natural resources. Take the gulf oil leak for example. The repercussions of a company trying to take a few shortcuts will have an effect on the ecosystem for an undetermined amount of time. I don't think we can live in this world anymore without doing damage, whether large or small. We can try to do our best to make choices that have the least harmful impact. I think that we owe it to the planet we were given to take care of it as best we can and do the things we know are right. It is a shame that thirty years ago there was hardly any emphasis on recycling and things like there is today. If we had been more aware as a people maybe less damage could have been done. When I was younger there wasn't the awareness by most people of the need to be responsible with our resources. It seemed to be assumed that resources were never ending. There was less talk of saving the planet because we didn't realize what danger the planet might be in. I don't think the average person was as informed as we are today. There was less media coverage. Today there is media coverage 24/7. You can find out anything, anytime. Had this been the same, say in ww2, I wonder what the thoughts on the war would have been. Today, things are much more in your face."

I think that my grandmother is very in touch with the problems that we have in society today. She has a different attitude than I thought she would. I kind of thought she was going to say that children should stop playing so many video games and that people should spend less time on the computer. She really suprised me by how much she knows and pays attention to. I think her generation was a lot different than ours is today. Like she said, there is so many more resources for news and information about the world around us. We know the damage that we cause yet we still do wrong things. I wish that younger people had the same attitude as my grandmother and maybe we all would be a little better at helping the planet.


Bird picture: http://geography6.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/oil_spill.jpg

News stand picture: http://www.thetechherald.com/media/images/200852/papers_1.jpg