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作者Donella H. Meadows 06.26.00
在這個處處期望你、獎賞你甚至鼓勵你做錯事的世界裡，要做件正確的事談何容易。
當Sierra Club與Disney的山地開發案抗爭時，才發現自己其實擁有Disney的部份股權。
當環保人士去參加全球氣候變遷研討會時，他們所搭乘的噴射客機一路上排放的都是溫室效應氣體。
當環保團體寄出大量的郵件呼籲保護森林時，儘管這些郵件是由再生紙印製的，但仍然是來自於生長在土地上的樹木，而其中只有百分之二十的比例能經由回收中心做再生處理，其餘的百分之八十都進了掩埋場。大約每一百份類似的文宣中，只有一份能真正產生回應。
環保團體仍是如此做下去的原因在於，即使只有百分之一的回應都是讓他們繼續努力的動力，因為他們不知道還有什麼其他的方法能引起我們對森林面積縮減這類急迫事件的關注。更何況廣發文宣這樣的事簡單又便宜，而且每個人都是這麼做的。
想想"新美國夢中心"（Center for a New American Dream）的誓詞（我是委員會成員之一）。這個傑出的組織擔負起「幫助人們從事負責任的消費行為，以增進我們的生活品質及保護環境。」他們不用說教的方式，事實上是用些許戲謔輕鬆的態度達成其訴求。「多些樂趣，少些廢話」是他們的座右銘。他們溫和地試圖讓人們瞭解生活中愈多的物質不但會毀壞我們的環境，而且讓太空變得混亂，讓我們的日子過得沒有希望，更讓我們遠離真正的（且非物質性的）滿足。
會員是任何一個組織的根本，尤其是對一個為自發性文化改革而努力的組織。所以新美國夢中心也正在為廣召會員而努力：假如會員人數能在明年十一月以前增加到一千五百人，則能獲得二十五萬美元的捐款。
目前的世界上，有的是能教你如何吸收一千五百個人加入任何一種組織的專家，首先你要買一份含有十五萬筆姓名及地址的郵寄名單，這名單是由一些不切實際的社會改革人士組成的組織中，挑選出可能會對於訂閱New American Dream以興趣的人所組成，然後你寄出十五萬封郵件。夠容易了吧，這套系統的運作早已經建立好了，每個人都是這麼做的。
專家說：要用十五萬封郵件才能換得一千五百個會員。這也就是說將會有十四萬八千五百封郵件會被丟棄。這些被丟棄的郵件是用樹木為原料、用耗能源的機器及墨水印製、校對、打標籤、用另外的機器來分類、裝上會製造污染的卡車、遞送到郵筒、然後再被裝上另外的載運車輛，其中20%送到回收處理站，另外80%送到掩埋場。
新美國夢中心要我們重新思考的就是這種未徵求同意的、侵擾的、擾亂生活的、摧毀地球的、漫不經心的、腐蝕心靈的、容易的、廉價的、每個人都這麼做的消費習慣。
中心的人員很清楚地意識到這樣的矛盾性，幾個委員會成員也指出同樣的矛盾。這具相對確定性的招募會員方式讓人很難拒絕，「除此之外，我們如何能在十一月以前吸收一千五百名新會員呢？事關二十五萬美元耶！」
他們勉為其難地決定不再寄發大量郵件，冒著失去補助款的風險，也不願失去他們的宗旨。
這個決定足以讓委員們驕傲而緊張。有人告訴我，沒有任何一個全國性的組織能不做常態性地大量寄發郵件，而還能生存。如果有，它一定是依賴某種能令人愉悅的替代方案，取代這種每天製造氾濫之垃圾郵件的大眾行銷方法。與這種疏離與了無人情之處理運作相對的當是借重真正友誼的方式。
如果每一個現有的會員都能帶來兩個朋友，就能幫組織在十一月以前達成預期的目標。聽起來是很容易吧！但幾乎沒有一個組織是用這個方式擴展的，而我逐漸悟出原因何在。我曾允諾要帶十個朋友進來，但為了某個煩人的原因，我才達到一半的目標就覺得很難在繼續下去了。
在現在的文化之下，你沒有辦法跟你的朋友談論你所相信的事，更不用說要說服他加入。但對於完全陌生的人，我們可以整天用粗糙的資訊轟炸他，只是會感到一些些不好意思，會因此而有一些羞怯，這樣做似乎是一種侵擾，且會冒著被人拒絕與你一同分享一項真心承諾的風險。跟一個陌生人分享我們玩世不恭的態度要比跟朋友分享夢想來得容易。
新美國夢中心意圖要改變這個悲哀的事實。我期盼見到中心及其它優良組織能建立起強而有力的會員關係，完全不靠購買或販售郵寄名單、不再用未經同意的文宣擾亂人們的生活，而且能維持對於樹木最深的敬意、不再浪費它們。我更希望樂於談論彼此之價值觀並願將之付諸行動的人們，能夠透過友誼的網絡，讓這鼓吹合理消費的運動蓬勃發展。
不知道在十一月以前，這個夢想能否成真。
Donella H. Meadows是永續研究所所長暨達特茅斯學院環境研究副教授
參考網站：Center for a New American Dream新美國夢：http://www.newdream.org/
版權歸屬：Grist Magazine 環境信託基金會（謝洵怡譯 吳海音審)
中英對照全文：http://news.ngo.org.tw/reviewer/donella/
re-donella20000626.htm
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by Donella H. Meadows
06.26.00
It's so hard to do right in a world that expects you, rewards you, encourages you to do wrong.
As when the Sierra Club, fighting off a Disney mountain development, discovered that it owned shares in Disney.
As when environmentalists jet to global climate change conferences, emitting greenhouse gases all the way.
As when green groups send out mass mailings pleading for the preservation of forests -- mailings printed on proper post-consumer recycled paper, which is, nevertheless, made from ground-up trees, cut from a forest, about to proceed with 20 percent probability to a recycling center, 80 percent to a landfill. One out of a hundred of these appeals will actually generate a response.
The green groups do it because even a 1 percent response keeps them in business. Because they don't know how else to bring the urgent matter of the shrinking forests to our overwhelmed attention. Because it's cheap and easy. Because everybody does it.
Consider the plight of the Center for a New American Dream (of which I am a board member). This worthy organization has taken on no less a task than "helping people consume responsibly to improve our quality of life and protect the environment." It does so without preaching, indeed with an irreverent lightness. "More fun, less stuff" is its motto. The Center gently points out that the relentless effort to channel ever more material through our lives not only devastates the environment, it also clutters our space, makes our days hopelessly hectic, and diverts us from many sources of true (and nonmaterial) satisfaction.
Members are the lifeblood of any organization, especially one that works for voluntary cultural change. So the Center for a New American Dream is on a membership drive. It has been offered a challenge grant: $250,000 to further the work of the organization, if the number of members goes up by 1,500 before next November.
In this world there are experts who will tell you how to enroll 1,500 people in anything. First you buy a mailing list of 150,000 names and addresses. You get it from organizations to which do-good folks of the sort who might be interested in a New American Dream subscribe. Then you send out 150,000 pieces of mail. It's easy. The system is all set up. Everyone does it.
It will take 150,000 appeals to bring back 1,500 memberships, the experts say. That means 148,500 will be thrown out. Made from trees, printed with inks by fuel-consuming machines, collated, labeled, sorted by other machines, loaded into pollution-spewing trucks, delivered to mailboxes, loaded into other vehicles headed for (20 percent) recycling stations or (80 percent) landfills.
Just the kind of unasked-for, intrusive, life-cluttering, earth-destroying, mindless, soul-eroding, easy, cheap, everybody-does-it consumption that the Center for a New American Dream is asking us to reconsider.
The Center's staff is well aware of the contradiction. Certain pesky board members have pointed it out as well. But it's hard to turn away from relative certainty into the unknown. "How else can we get 1,500 new members by November? There's $250,000 riding on it!"
With a great gulp, the Center decided not to do a mailing, risking the challenge grant rather than blowing off its principles.
It's enough to make a board member both proud and nervous. People tell me that a national organization cannot survive without regular mass mailings. If one can, it will have to rely on the delightful alternative to the undelightful mass marketing that generates our daily flood of junk mail. The opposite of distant, impersonal manipulation is genuine human friendship.
If each existing Center member brought in two friends, that would get the organization to its goal long before November. Sounds simple. But hardly any organization grows that way, and I'm discovering why. I have pledged to bring in 10 friends myself. I'm halfway there, but I'm finding it hard going, for a disturbing reason.
It is not OK in this culture to talk to friends about causes you believe in, much less to ask them to join in. It's OK to blast perfect strangers with crass messages every hour of the day, but it's a tinge embarrassing, it brings up some shyness, it seems an intrusion, it risks rejection to share real heartfelt commitments. It's easier to share our cynicism with strangers than our dreams with friends.
The very purpose of the Center for a New American Dream seems to require changing that sad fact. I'd love to see the Center -- and other good organizations -- build up a strong membership while neither buying nor selling mailing lists, while refusing to invade people's lives with unsolicited appeals, while maintaining such deep respect for trees that it will not waste them. I'd like to see a movement for sane consumption swell up sanely, through webs of friendship among people willing to speak about and act on their real values.
I wonder if it's possible. Before November.
Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. |
