Reflections on Kenneth Worthy on his book "Invisible Nature"

The main theme his book concerns why people choose environmentally destructive choices every day, which conflict with their values, while alternatives are available. Worthy discusses the reason why this is, and alternatives of changes that would make a difference for the outcome that our life style leads to. He views the Western world’s consumption as a major reason for the state of the Earth, contrary to the life style of the Eastern part of the globe. But why then, are people more “close to earth”, even in the developing so inclined to appropriate this destructive behavior as soon as we can afford to do that; to consume unaccountable if the opportunity is there. I first had in mind that the different religions in the East and the West might play an important role for how people live and how they reflect on new phenomena that intrude into their lives. But may be the truth about the human character is that all of us, if we have the opportunity, like consumerism.
I find his argument about the disconnection from the outcome of our actions is extremely important. He points out that we are very alienated from the consequences of our choices. However, I do not follow him (reading my notes today) why he says that we partly, because we do not trust people in power have shifted our dependence more onto institutions. If he means NGOs and other more or less democratic movements, I can understand. But, even belonging to a NGO could make us infantilized, because we think that we do not need to take any responsibilities ourselves when we have such good volunteers doing the job, a very bad situation for a healthy society. Worthy sees the science technical rational problem solving as a bad alternative as it also distance us from consequences and liability to accountable behavior. There is too little of communication between humanities and science. Possibly because both sides might have difficulties to understand and accept each other stand points besides how to take action, like how to inform. My opinion is that we NEED the rationality of science and the human “soft ware” cooperatively to begin NOW! If there will be any chance of a change it needs that our mentality is changes for that goal. It could be very broad and everybody can contribute with a small piece. Then we might be able to follow Worthy’s idea about short-term processes with direct reward and long-term processes to reduce the effects of our, hopefully then, previous abandoned actions. Unfortunately the long-term actions will take generations to matter realistically. When and if that happens, it is already much too late. I admire Worthy’s positive attitude, but I find myself too rational to believe we can manage our situation. We are the only ones to hold responsible for the situation we have created and, unfortunately, I do not think we will be able, or even want to change to a sustainable life style. Partly, as I have mentioned in other reflections, that too much in life is occupied with day to day activities to “survive”. Besides, we are horrified when reading, looking or listening to the news about the declining environmental situations but the next day there is more news on war (extremely damaging to people AND the environment) and we forget what we learnt the day before.