Overly Melodramatic Environmentalism

Overly Melodramatic Environmentalism

I consider myself to be environmentally conscious, an environmentalist if you will.

Being green is something I do work to do.

But sometimes I find the rhetoric to be a bit tiresome, melodramatic, and counter-porductive.

You can only pound people with a message of despair so often before it starts to become white noise.

Sometimes I see a much better approach, but often we get the tactics of the Seattle City Council shoving stuff down from high above on environmental issues. Those tactics and the overly-meloidramatic way TV news covers environmental issues often does damage and not help to the environmental cause.

The following poem was one I wrote a few years back when I was frustrated with the backlash I was seeing from overly-melodramatic environmentalism.

11.26.95 poetry slam - 3 hr

How can people relate to "save the earth"
when they've never left their home town?
Is a can in a ditch a crime against the earth?
Or an easy to remedy problem?
Slogans overstate the truth
even when they are mostly accurate
turn into a backlash
those in agreement say "yeah"
those who don't say "puh-lease"
cynics and doubters exploit the claims
ecotopians are labeled as dangerous
extremists of the worst kind
corporations buy ad time
and let us know how safe things really are
yet elitism within the movement
hes led to battles and disharmony
letting people like Limbaugh have influence
even when they lie
and their sponsors cheat and steal
our heritage
our planet
our grandchildren's future