Behold the cover of Jenny Price’s most recent book
Oh, so you’d like to “Save the Planet?” Alas, if only there was a step-by-step guide, a How-To Manual! It’s a daunting, imperfect task — a calling for which you’d prefer a set of linear instructions.
What if I told you Saving The Planet was not only an imperfectly unscalable task, but also not a morally sound pursuit? Lawful neutral, perhaps. But certainly not lawful good.
Jenny Price’s Stop Saving the Planet: An Environmentalist Manifesto offers a succinct, compelling case for rethinking the commonly embraced mantra of planet-saving. She criticizes the binary the ‘Save the Planet’ evokes, neatly separating humans from their surrounding ecosystems, accentuating the divide between Us and the cypress trees that dot our cityscapes.
Price, a public writer and artist, makes her case with scintillating humor: “Can we please stop trying to save the $#!ing planet?!”
She goes on to outline an alternate method of ‘saving,’ one that hinges on a restructuring of economies and a rethinking of sustainable initiatives more broadly. We can’t just save the planet — what about the myriad of social justice issues intertwined with environmentalism? The actions of the average person result in impacts, direct and indirect, on environments everywhere.
What Price describes as ‘Great Changes’ environmentalism recognizes the connection between economy and earthcare. If Humans are inseparable from mountainscapes carved with the noses of society’s renowned dead titans, then surely our systems of monetary trade are also intertwined with the Great Outdoors. The alleged wilderness is not so wild and not so far away, the outdoors inextricable from the ‘in.’
Price’s point is that every aspect of our daily lives impacts nearby environments in some manner — internet usage entails emitting greenhouse gases, cooking linguini necessitates turning on a gas stove, trekking through the Appalachians requires material items assembled in a factory in some distant location. An ‘in here’ approach to eco-friendly stewardship acknowledges this connection, recognizing the ways that we our choices as consumers contribute to environmental degradation.
The crux of Price’s masterful manifesto is this: you can’t buy your way into a greener lifestyle. Meaningful earthcare doesn’t have a price tag. The idea of sustainability as something you can buy — like a glamorous $70k vehicle — has muddied the global perceptions of those who dub themselves environmentalists.
If an (allegedly) eco-friendly lifestyle is available solely to those who can afford chic vehicles, then what about those already struggling financially? Price’s biting prose criticizes the superficial nature of sustainability that comes with a price tag.
“Why Does Everyone Hate Environmentalists?” inquires Price’s manifesto. It’s a good question, and one Price answers well. When Saving The Planet becomes a hobby for the affluent, then yes — those who can’t afford greenwashed commodities would question environmentalists who spend excessive sums on ‘sustainable’ consumer goods.
Cruising through suburbia in your bumper sticker-laden Prius might make you feel like a god of sustainability, but high efficiency vehicles serve merely as vehicles for ‘greener-than-thou’ environmentalism. An action that makes you feel more virtuous won’t negate the myriad ways you perpetuate ecological degradation. Price’s analysis of environmental guilt doesn’t cut corners, and — sometimes addressing the reader directly in pithy second person — it’s not the type of book many environmentalists would want to cozy up to at night.
Speaking to the shallowness of Whole Planetude, or the (mis)conception that every action taken towards protecting ecologies is at least some sort of action, Price reminds us that 1 + 1 ⧣ 100. Recycling your homework — which, by the way, is not likely to make up part of the 3.7% of materials that end up repurposed — won’t stop the ocean from consuming the bottom half of Florida. Price reminds her readers that corporations and bureaucracies ultimately wield the power to shape broader eco-consciousness at large.
We’re not helpless, though. Price’s avant-garde ending makes that fact abundantly clear: she invites her readers to take tangible action, leaving space titled ‘SCRIBBLE ZONES: write, draw, ponder.’ Reminiscent of elementary school exercises meant to inspire creative thought, these pages offer a tl;dr version of all that was fleshed out within the pages of Price’s book. She stresses the importance of collaboration as a pathway to environmental problem-solving, emphasizing the vital role of art and activism to spur public action.
Forget climate defeatism. Stop pining for an idealized version of wilderness! Price ends on a note of hope: she details tool libraries, bike co-ops, and fashion swaps as ‘all the rage,’ her book rolling its eyes at “eco-friendly” items with a hefty price tag.
While straightforward and candid in its critique of the consumer-oriented environmental movement, Stop Saving the Planet isn’t for those who already have a solid grasp on the shortcomings of modern environmentalism.
The 39 steps outlined by Price act as a touchstone for taking on meaningful work related to improving our climate and ecologies. It’s worth noting, however, that her diction — while accessible and witty — sometimes reads as stilted and a touch simplistic.She criticizes the shallow nature of listicles meant to affect change, all the while ironically writing her own. A well thought-out, in-depth guide for environmental stewardship, but a step-by-step outline nonetheless. Can the complex issue of affecting ethical environmental action — along with the humanitarian and social justice issues that affect them — be meaningfully fleshed out in a mere 143 page volume?
I agree: such a feat seems implausible. But that shouldn’t deter aspiring environmentalists from wrestling with the candor of Price’s How to Stop Saving the Planet. Price weaves a thoughtful piece that reads as pithy, quirky, and self-aware. Consider borrowing it from a friend, or else securing a lightly used copy. Haven’t you heard? Secondhand is all the rage.