While Juan was cooking dinner, I was attempting to start my
short essay about environmental problems in Argentina (which really should be a
book vs. a two page paper…). I started to ask him about attitudes in Argentina
about the environment and climate change and learned that while it’s clearly a
problem, people are still pretty uninformed and nobody is making any concerted
efforts to change.
First take this simple example—there are mounds of dog turds
and garbage on every street. People solve this problem not by training their
dogs nor by installing more garbage cans, but by washing it all away. With
water. Hoses flow all morning, every morning while owners of stores and
concerned apartment renters spray it all away. Sometimes they just abandon the
hoses and let them run for who knows how long and that’s why the gutters are
always full. I’m not saying we don’t waste water in the US, but this is a
blatant waste of otherwise decent water. Water is a precious resource that’s
more and more expensive here, and I’m shocked to see people every morning
throwing it and their money away. The solution is obvious—stop letting dogs
drop a load in the street whenever they feel like it (maybe the doo-doo bag is
demeaning to carry, but if you can’t handle it, you shouldn’t have a dog) and
rework the dismissive attitudes porteños
have towards garbage. Buenos Aires, architecturally, is a lovely city filled
with trees along every road, but this effect is vastly overshadowed by the
heaps of garbage and meaningless graffiti scrawled over everything. Even the
Obelisk and gates to the Casa Rosada have graffiti and trash surrounding it!
And it’s hard to respect a city whose own population treats it like a dumpster…
The
issue of recycling is also very interesting. It doesn’t really exist here.
You’re not going to see any blue or green bins indicating you can throw your
paper, plastic or glass here. This, ironically, despite the fact that so many
things here can be recycled because there’s fewer products here with frivolous
and unrecyclable packaging. We’re not great at it in the US, but we’re trying. However,
there are unofficial recycling sorters here—the cartoneros. The cartoneros
come from very desperate economic conditions and have been relegated to sort through the garbage to find
recyclable materials, which they then recycle for money or resell to people who
can find a use for it. It’s not necessarily because they care about Earth—it’s
because they have absolutely nothing. It’s heartbreaking to see them at night,
sorting through the trash, as many of those hands sifting through belong to
children. Seeing a group of people whose wellbeing depends on what I and
everyone else in Buenos Aires throws away is a double whammy—I’m lucky to even
have the privilege to throw things away…
Then
there’s the fact that Argentina is obviously a very rich, diverse country,
environmentally speaking. From the salt flats up north, Río de la Plata region
to the east, Pampas in the center to Patagonia and the vineyards of the Andes
from the west to the glaciers in the south, Argentina has a lot to lose if the
climate starts to change too much or if its citizens keep polluting it so. What
is Argentina but the incredible sum of its environments?
It is
here that I will point out that I’m aware that most of the detrimental effects
of climate change have been caused by countries that will not experience these effects
at their worst—it will mostly be countries (or islands) that have contributed
little, but will be impacted severely regardless. However, while we’re still awaiting these effects, Argentina is
doing a lot of immediate damage in the form of industrial, agricultural and
chemical pollution and beyond.
Thus, Argentina
is caught in an interesting place—it’s fairly rich in resources and
environments that people travel to visit specifically, but it is also still
developing, meaning that these precious resources and habitats are being
exploited for financial gain—which contributes to both immediate environmental
damage as well as the triggers of climate change. Much like in virtually every
other place in the world…While the government does have some campaigns for
protection, education and sustainable development, I have yet to see any of
these actually functioning. Plus, let’s face it, the bureaucracy here is so
corrupt and ineffective, it makes our bureaucracy in the US look like
everything is running perfectly.
While
these attempts at change by the government have failed, new policies about
subsidies and increasing prices have contributed more to people making changes
that affect the environment. Unfortunately it seems that when it comes to the
issue of climate change, people don’t respond until they have to—and this
usually means they’re responding to changes in price. People are starting to
use less electricity and water, not because they are thinking about Earth, but
because they’re thinking about their utilities bill. It’s a start, though…
But I
don’t want to overshadow the people who are informed and taking action. This is
demonstrated by people from interior provinces who in 2008, for example,
protested the government’s decision to install more mining operations at the
expense of the glacial area within the Andes. But despite their pleas, it
happened anyway. In Buenos Aires, there are some groups that are attempting to
spread awareness and encourage people to make those small, easy changes that
can make such a huge difference—but despite these efforts, the environment
isn’t front page news. No wonder I was unable to compile enough information to
complete a research paper I attempted my sophomore year about this exact topic…
So,
what does all of this mean? Have you seen Wall-E? Well, if that’s the way of
explaining how truly disastrous the future will be to children, then you can imagine how little hope I have as an adult studying this topic. I don’t want
to say we’re doomed, but we are doomed if we don’t figure this out and change
our ways worldwide.
And
speaking of Wall-E, they could really use him all over this city…
No comments:
Post a Comment