What are our Obstacles?: The Will of the People

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Will of the People:



         A very important factor for any nation which wants to become sustainable is its people. In a free society it is the people who cause change to occur. If the majority of a country’s people do not want to be good stewards of their surroundings, the nation will be in trouble. Through the past years “worrying about the environment” has been interpreted as a political issue. In the United States, the conservatives tend to believe that environmental issues belong to the liberals. Not everyone holds this opinion however. Two very well known leaders on these issues are Newt Gingrich, a conservative, and Al Gore, a liberal. They both state that these issues should not be based on one’s political standings, but on one’s views about the environment and a moral commitment to save the earth.

         Since the people are the driving forces of nations, sustainable development cannot be furthered without the peoples’ support. The will of the people is the will of the nation. Will it be difficult to get the people in a country to work together to seek to help save the planet? Of course it will. It is especially difficult to get people in poorly developed nations which don’t have enough food or water to view the environment as a priority. Nevertheless, the world is cycling downward, like it or not. And we, the new generation, need to fix the mistakes of the past generations. We need to work together to establish principles and laws which will help our nation to become more sustainable. The love of our earth is found in each of us.

         Most people who are poor stewards do not willfully ignore consequences of what they are doing. Instead, they live the way they do because it’s the easiest or cheapest way. Also they may not fully understand what is at stake. We need the help of all people to carry out sustainable development. We need to realize that good stewardship isn’t a surreal goal that only a particular nation or political party pursues. Instead, as Al Gore stated very well in An Inconvenient Truth: “It is not a political issue, but a moral issue”

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Sources:

Gingrich, Newt. “A Contract with the Earth”. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Accessed 02 February 2008.

Gore, Albert. “An Inconvenient Truth”. New York, New York. Rodale Press, 2006.   Accessed 02 February 2008.

Photograph:

mvjon. “Vote Here-Vote Aqui”. Flickr.com. 29 January 2006. Accessed 15 February 2008. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/winmac/92847877/>
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