Environmental Irony?

On Wednesday BlogKC posted the following criticism of Bridging The Gap's Earth Day event; my reply is posted in their comments and below.

"This bit is almost a satire of itself.  Bridging the Gap has moved KC’s Earth Day celebration from the Zoo to Shawnee Mission Park, in the heart of the suburbs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Johnson County is not the geographic center of the region… This new location puts Earth Day almost 45 minutes away from the majority of the region’s population and provides no public transportation access. Environmental supporters will have to get in their cars and drive up to twice as far as last year, putting quite a bit more pollution into the air. Perhaps the environmentally friendly thing to do is just stay home this year."

Environmental problems are complicated, and require holistic solutions. In a similar way, making environmental choices in organizing an event like Earth Day is complicated: every option has effects on the environment and on the success of the event. Criticizing the event only in terms of a single factor – its public transportation options – without a holistic consideration of all the other factors involved reflects the kind of deconstructive thinking that led to many of the environmental problems we face today.

In evaluating possible venues Bridging The Gap (BTG) considered transit access along with many other criteria: whether there were admission fees (a past criticism of the location – there are none this year), impact on the site itself, potential for reaching new people with an environmental message, whether the site had environmental features that could be part of the education, and whether potential locations had staff or volunteers to help organize the event.

The decision to move to Shawnee Mission Park was partly a result of the fact that the staff of Johnson County Parks and the all-volunteer Johnson County Friends For Parks and Recreation were both hugely enthusiastic about the possibility of hosting Earth Day. There is a growing environmental consciousness in Johnson County among people who have never been to the Kansas City Zoo who we expect will attend their first Earth Day event this year.

Also, BTG affiliate Kansas City WildLands maintains or is restoring thirteen remnant ecosystems in the region, one of which is in the Park. The Earthfest includes tours of that prairie ecosystem, an unparalleled opportunity to teach people about ecosystems, biological diversity, and the costs of development and sprawl. Similar tours to another site were conducted from the Zoo each year, but potential hosts with a WildLands site are limited. The Earthfest schedule includes other educational activities that could not take place at some of the venues better served by mass transit.

We live, work and play in this community, with its flaws and its treasures. Our regional transit system is far from adequate. Our environmental performance as a region is not great – we sprawl over huge areas and have built more miles of highway per capita than any city in the country to serve that sprawl. We can’t correct all of our community’s problems and with this one event, and we can’t make perfect environmental choices in organizing this event. After all, the short term environmental effect would be best if we all stayed home and watched TV.

What we can do – and what BTG asks individuals, governments and businesses to do – is to take into account the environmental, economic and community effects of our actions. We did so with the Earthfest, and decided that the environmental and educational benefits overall outweighed the lack of transit access.

Mark Carr
Bridging The Gap

Comments

[The Heretik]

Mark, there is a nice picture for you here

[BlogKC]

Mark, Will Bridging the Gap be moving this event around to a different suburb every year? If Shawnee Mission gets it this year, how about Lake Jacomo next year? Or Tiffany Springs Park the year after that? Then Wyco Lake Park? etc… One of the problems with a sprawled city is that even a suburban location isn’t even convenient for most suburbanites. People in the Nothland and Eastern Jack generally *hate* having to go to Johnson County. Conversely, many people in Joco don’t even know there are other suburbs in KC, and wouldn’t bother going there. In a sprawled city like ours it’s even more important to make the effort to hold community gatherings in the center of the region. It’s equally convenient/inconvenient for everyone. So many people already feel they have no reason to go north of 119th, or south of the river, or west of Noland Road, etc. This move takes away yet another reason for people to go into the city and reinforces the attitudes that keep people from caring about the things like transportation, suburban sprawl, air quality, etc. People can just keep moving further out and programs like just follow them out there.