TALK: The Green Mountain College Blog

I grew up in little Riverton, New Jersey. My friends and I would swim in the Delaware River and Pompessant Creek when it was warm enough, and walk on 'em when it was cold enough. While most people have certain stigmas attached to New Jersey--and though much of them are valid-- I am comfortable being proud of where I'm from and how I spent my days there. I wouldn't say I was privvy to boundless Nature or an authentic Wilderness at any stretch, but the woods that lined the Pompessant and those that stretched beyond, along 'Sandy Beach' were what we had and we relished in them.

When much of the world around you is concrete and synthetic and the majority of Nature that is present is mostly manicured yards, the splatterings of true Nature that remain are of particular value, both intrinsically and in terms of ecological wellbeing. That scarcity is perhaps where the seeds of my environmental consciousness took root. And is assuredly the same characteristic of my growing up that makes seeing things like this so painful:

This development was created (rather, this Nature was destroyed) while I was at school here. It stands on the ground where I spent countless nights with my friends in the shanty we built, and and the forts we made in the years before those. Coming home to see what was a time capsule of my youth compromised by short-sighted regional planning and irrational resource allocation drove home in a manner that is about as poignant as I can bear why I am here.

I came to Green Mountain hoping to find a path through which I could mitigate, if not reverse, the devestating social and ecological ramifications that spawn from sprawl. I truly do love my home, even so there are roads there I will avoid if I can help it so as to save myself from confronting the concrete graveyards of abandoned strip malls decaying juxtapose to bigger, newer ones that tower over freshly conquered tracts of ever-fleeting wilderness.

I have to believe that sustainable development is not an oxymoron. There are very few materials utilized in the construction of new buildings that are lacking in retiring ones. I have always been blown away by how developers will forsake the perfectly appropriate locally sourced inputs that are available in the deceased shopping centers they build across the street from instead of on top of. Decisions always based on contrived definitions of efficiency. That I suppose is just another one of the self-destructive symptoms of a system that allows us to externalize the most crucial elements of development in particular and life in general.

Thank goodness there are tangible changes in the vein of what I've been speaking of. It's just a shame that everything good seems to be entirely retroactive. I was relatively lucky with my loss; so many have lost homes, family, access to potable water....

If anyone who reads this has any stake in a development project--directely or indirectly-- please consider integrating the Hannover Principles of William McDonough and Michael Braungart into the plans. I would enjoin anyone interested in seeing a very real escape plan from our current rutted path to look into them as well. These two role model humans have already revolutionized considerably Ford, Nike, and the textile industry--not to mention the entire world of design.

I don't intend to project my values on anyone; I simply feel this applies to all of us. We all have the power to be heard in our own town halls and communities. Become kinetic.