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No One Cares

And it might be a problem, but that's just my humbly hypocritical opinion.

By Kendi StonebergPublished 4 years ago 7 min read
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Does it bother you?

I’ll tell you right now, it doesn’t really bother me much. I don’t think twice very often. I scroll past articles titled WARNING: ICE CAPS MELTING and RESOURCES LIMITED: TIME TO CHANGE without pause because what am I supposed to do about it, really? and then stop to appreciate a two-minute video of a social media influencer caught doing something ridiculous in public to get that perfect product-sponsored post, all the while I’m filling the bathtub to its brim for the third time that week (and it’s only Wednesday, don’t @ me).

I run the sink water when it’s not being used. I leave lights on in empty rooms. I consume natural resources like they’re infinite commodities produced for my own personal disposal. And if I ever stop long enough to consider the idea that future generations might suffer for my selfishness, I brush it aside and convince myself it’s not important. Someone else will worry about it for me, right? Someone else will care. And I excuse my lack of concern with thoughts like, “I’m not in a position to change anything, so why bother?” Or, “If my small contribution will amount to nothing, then why should I inconvenience myself?”

Am I making you uncomfortable yet?

No? Right, that makes sense. Because in the end, everyone knows it all comes down to just one thing: we—you and I, friend—don’t care enough to change.

So who are we to ask anyone else to care? To change?

Maybe you’d hoped, like I often do, that ignoring it will make it go away. That our ignorance will keep us sheltered from the storms building outside the front doors of our own happy little worlds. After all, life goes on.

Doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, the problem is not ignorance. We know what’s happening. For years, warnings have saturated our feeds and news outlets to the point where we have stopped listening. Words like THE END IS NEAR and ALL OF HUMANITY AT RISK go in one ear and out the other. Why? Because the greater majority of us hear those words from the safety and comfort of our homes, with access to a seemingly endless abundance of running water and electricity, our cars parked in garages, protected from the outer elements, fueled and ready to take us to work, to the mall, to the movies, to our kid’s soccer games.

Those ice caps are melting on the other side of the world. That endangered species is one I’ve only read about in books. Little Mikey scored his very first goal right there on the field where everyone I know could witness it. Which of these do you think will take precedence in the world of events I find significant to me, personally? Which of these will be featured on my twenty-slide Instagram story?

Right, we’ll gasp and post about Australia burning (sorry Australia), and tell our followers how sad we are about the Koalas. We’ll scratch our heads at the idea of wearing a mask on a morning jog through the park because Korea has a particularly bad ‘fine dust’ problem that day. Or week. Or season. And let’s just not even talk about the coronavirus because it’s China’s problem. What does that even have to do with climate change, anyway?

But the fact is, it’s not us. And even if it is ‘us’ we’ll just moan about it on social media, we’ll adapt, we’ll move on. No one wants to talk too long about these annoying inconveniences heralding a much greater, scarier problem—yes, scarier than a country on fire, a city choking on someone else’s bad fumes, a disease threatening a pandemic. The doomsday speech is not good for content. It’s not good for likes. It’s not good for politics.

Who will make us care, then? Is it the influencer who posted her second picture of herself drinking a triple-venti-half-sweet-non-fat-caramel-macchiato (extra non-fat) through a metal straw and captioned it SAVE THE SWEET TURTLES, adding the ‘sweet’ for sympathy’s sake like the focus of her photo is not, in fact, her sparkly new set of teal acrylics? Is it your next-door neighbor who criticized you for using plastic wrap to cover the paper plate of home-baked cookies you took to the block party? Is it the small-time activist hate-commenting on your travel photo to tell you that you are killing the planet by even setting foot on a plane, you monster?

Meanwhile the rest of us are shaking our heads at them like we know better. But these people are trying, at least. They’re doing something. They might actually give a damn, even.

But it’s not effective.

It doesn't make us care.

Maybe we cared a little bit when the 2009 Disney stars sang about it surrounded by screens of digitized vegetation. Why? Because everyone loves Disney. We might have cared for a moment when Al Gore presented to us An Inconvenient Truth about our world and what will happen to it if we don’t change our destructive ways very soon. Why? Because he’s influential, I guess, and has a flair for the dramatic. And I’m sure most of us cared for a comparatively long while when we heard the words “how dare you?” from the mouth of a teenage girl who’d felt obligated to step up where others had failed. Why? Because for a second, we thought we could relate. We felt Greta Thunberg’s desperation as if it were our own.

But, like the social media posts and the offhand admonishments of our neighbors, these songs and speeches and reprimands did the bare minimum to provoke actual change. They failed to cure a sick planet filled pole to pole with a species bred for its blissful indifference.

Which makes us wonder, whose job is it to cure the thing, anyway?

It’s definitely not Hannah Montana’s job. And it's not Zach's and Cody's living their suite life on the deck of an 87,000-ton (yes, I did research this) cruise ship that never seems to port. It’s not up to little Mikey; he's too busy playing soccer and scoring goals for the pride of the neighborhood and thirty of Mom's closest Insta-friends. Nor is it Extra Non-fat Macchiato's, Next-Door Neighbor’s, or Hate-Commenter’s job. It’s not even Greta Thunberg’s job. She said so herself; she shouldn’t have to tell us what to do, she’s a child. And, if you’re wondering, it’s not my job, either. Never—and I cannot stress this enough—never entrust the health and safety of a planet to the person who must make a conscious effort to conserve water whilst brushing her teeth.

That being said,

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN WITH 'MAY' BEING THE OPERATIVE WORD:

As one who has openly admitted to committing heinous crimes of potentially severe planetary harm, and as a self-appointed spokesperson of the flawed and selfish majority just out here enjoying the hitherto undisturbed present, I offer this letter, willfully admitting to the hypocrisy it contains, to kindly ask you to put a bit more effort into your job. And, shamelessly, to ask you to do it solely by the grit of your own cost-free determination, absent any smidgen of support from your fellows or constituents. Because the truth is, no one cares.

No one cares.

That should scare us, but it doesn’t. It should shock us, but we’re fine. Totally. We’re beyond fear, having settled so deeply into the comfortable slumber of our apathy. Someone needs to wake us up. Someone who has the ability, the position, the campaign slogan, and the willpower to change the priorities of the general population needs to step forward and WAKE US UP. Because unfortunately, as things currently stand, it’s going to take someone like you caring a whole lot more about what you do—what you promised to do—before the rest of us even consider changing for the better.

So tell me, does that bother you?

If so, then maybe (and this is just a casual suggestion) you should do something about it.

Sincerely,

Just one in a world of many not even looking for reasons to care anymore

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