Saving the Planet

In AP English we received the following prompt:

In The March of Folly historian Barbara Tuchman writes:

Wooden-headedness, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government.

Some people would claim that what Tuchman class wooden-headedness plays a remarkably large role in all organizations and, indeed, in all human affairs. Defend, challenge, or qualify the idea about the prevalence of wooden-headedness in human actions and decisions.

Although in my essay I used examples from the movie Gandhi, the prompt can also be affirmed by examining environmentalism. Not only have moves to clean up US industry been an incomplete success (GE Plastics and Alcoa locally pump out HUGE amounts of carcinogens), but even the evironmentalists are resorting to wooden-headedness to beat the polluters. The Philadelphia-based Evangelical Environmental Networktries to convince followers that driving a hybrid gas-electric car and using public transportation when possible is a moral imperative. I am absolutely not making this up ("What Would Jesus Drive?")! Meanwhile the Bush Administration unilaterally rejected the Kyoto Protocol (which, justified or not, shows that the world is not ready for an honest environmental drive).

While the government, business groups, and religious organizations struggle over controlling the mass's actions on environmentalism, consumers continue their wooden-headed wasteful ways (including myself). When was the last time you used a disposable plastic product? 20 oz Coke bottles, straws, spoons, candy wrappers, just to name a few possible plastic products. When was the last time you actually tried to conserve electricity by turning off the TV whenever you weren't in the room for even one second?

Wooden-headedness rules the environmentalism battle. It is being fought by evangelican-wooden-headedness. All this being ignored by the wooden-headed consumers.

I'd like to end with a poem from my sister's AIM profile, which I admit is only tangentially related. But it's a cool poem and the last line does have a good closing for this post.

PLANTATION:
a story of a young leaf and his struggle with death
What is this horrible situation?
Oh, it has given me such frustration
The branch that's always been my foundation
Is trying to put an end to me, his creation
A process called photosynthesization
Used to give me healthy colorization
However, due to its recent inactivation
I've begun to develop a brown pigmentation
I'm probably suffering from overdramatization
But there is another problem: the gravitation
Being at such a lofty elevation
Previously had no ramification
But now I've come to the realizaiton
That the slightest breeze or agitation
Could end my days of botanical relaxation
By severing the bonds of my levitation
So now I sit here in deep contemplation
Helpless and hopeless, where's my motivation?