Environmental Apocalypse or Ecologism: the Beginning of a New Era

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According to a 2008 report by the EPA, the US generated 250 million tons of trash, averaging 4.5 pounds per person per day. This is an increase from the 88 million tons, or 2.7 pounds per person that was recorded in 1960. However, over that same time period there was an even greater increase in the amount of that waste that was recycled. Moving from a meager 5.5% of waste recycled in 1960, the US has increased to over 33% of total waste recycled in 2008 (Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the United States: Facts and Figures, 2008). Discounting the amount of waste that is recycled still leaves a difference of more than double in the waste creation between the years, but the exponential growth in the recycling amount provides information into a changing attitude. Although waste and recycling are only a subset of the ecological issues faced across the globe today, this information provides insight into the mindset and changing values relative to the environment. The improvement in the recycling rate didn’t occur over a year or even in the last decade, but has steadily climbed over the last 40 years. We can expect to find similar adoption rates across all environmental solutions, as it generally takes time for the information and education to spread, and additional time for it to be broadly accepted. As such, the most important question we can look to answer is not, whether one solution is better than another, but if we applied any and all possible solutions to the issues, is there time to fix the problems we have caused. To determine this we must decide our current situation and the varying outcomes we can expect. There are four stages of growth in the life cycle of civilizations with each one given a seasonal alias starting with Spring and Summer, and ending with Autumn and Winter respectively (Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity, 1981). A quick assessment of our

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