A deadline for human beings?
I bet you have no idea how much trash you will throw away every day, right?
Neither did I and the other 200 or so students in my university until we started recording our daily waste disposal, an act that wasn’t very pleasant to its daily practitioners and an idea thought to be futile by experts in the field of environmental science.
The method of recording could not be simpler and requires no more than an engine of natural curiosity to start it up and a little more patience to keep on doing. While carrying out the trial run, I used pen and paper to write the results down. However, in our efforts to make it as easy, timesaving and environmentally-friendly as possible, my research team designed an online waste recording form and shared it with other students through social media networks. In the end, slightly more than 200 students joined this seemingly pointless activity and their kind acts of clicking or tapping on their smart gadgets provided primary data for my research.
Guess how many plastic items 200 or so students used and discarded in one single day? 549.
Written as an equation, it would look like this: 200 students x [convenient-thing factor per day] = 549 plastic items. Although I don’t know how large is large enough for a number like that to have substantive meaning in life, I do know that if I count in the total number of 1.35 billion people as a multiplier, I will soon be sitting in a country called People’s Republic of Plastics. [Offshore — People’s Ocean of Plastics? Ed.]
After the completion of the recording part, I sent out invitations to student recorders through email for interview purposes. It turned out that hours of talking and discussion with people face-to-face was more beneficial and thought-provoking than interpreting the data. It was the reactions and changes happening in the interviewees during and after the recording that broadened my thinking around environmental education and the whole picture of environmental pollution in China.
Nearly all students interviewed reported that the self-imposed act of recording led them to become more conscious of the various things that they consume and throw away each day. Some even claimed that their level of anxiety accumulated as the length of their recording form got longer. It was the simple act of recording that suddenly dawned on recorders that the waste we generate each day actually records our economic life, which, be it a blessing or a curse, might encompass and equal our whole life.
It’s too easy to blame governments for poorly thought-out policies, or to push industry leaders to come up with technology breakthroughs, far easier than to face the inconvenient truth that our seemingly trivial daily consuming habit would accumulate and ultimately contribute to an overwhelmingly large amount of waste. Thinking from an unpleasant perspective, we are simultaneously living in and creating a world of trash.
It is said that all social movements and changes start with a rising sense of awareness. As a researcher, I was happy to hear interviewees talking about their rising consciousness about waste management, but stopping here would make this essay another kind of chicken-soup article that too easily spreads an appealing message based on unscientific research. Unfortunately, according to my interview results, it seemed that everything that starts with a consciousness ends with it too.
There are three dimensions to assess the efficacy of my recording activity as a student-initiated form of education for sustainable development: changes in attitude, awareness and actions. Because together we unconsciously created that large amount of trash, I hypothesized that a rising environmental awareness would next lead to a change in behavior among the group of recorders, and thus stir up positive social change through gathering up our efforts as individuals. However, to my surprise, few recorders have pushed forward and transformed their environmental awareness into daily practices in pursuit of a greener lifestyle. “After recording my use of disposable chopsticks for four days, I was thinking that maybe I should buy myself a pair of reusable chopsticks” said one student recorder who failed to put her words into actions ultimately. She was just thinking about taking action.
If you want to push further for reasons, they will tell you: “Personal change is not as forceful and effective as system change, therefore we are unwilling to change as individuals.” Some others believed in technological fixes instead of personal change to solve the environmental problem. For example, one interviewee claimed that it was too troublesome to use a lunch-box because he’ll have to wash it afterwards. Instead, he would be more than willing to pay extra for biodegradable take-out boxes, which would save him the trouble and at the same time be more environmentally-friendly.
It even became amusing for me to hear interviewees talking about their growing awareness, while rejecting any actual actions or even attempts to change their own lifestyle. It seemed to me that this emerging consciousness reportedly gained by every recorder somehow, mysteriously, turned into a kind of collective unconsciousness that shunned any further actions. Awareness alone doesn’t carry us along the road to social change.
So the question becomes: what is lacking between the presence of discourse and the absence of actions?
Knowledge, thought by many, could bridge this gap and link words with actions. Nearly all interviewees reached a consensus on the importance of higher education. Some recorders claimed that they failed to have follow-up actions because they haven’t been informed or instructed about specific, quantified ways to tackle the environmental problem. This mentality perfectly reflects the current situation of environmental education, or education in general, in China: We have taught students knowledge from waste recycling to climate change, but so exclusively from a top-down structure that they gradually lose the passion and curiosity to reflect, introspect and question from a bottom-up fashion.
If there does exist education for sustainable development worthy of comment in China in the first place, then it is far from sufficient, biased and unfairly distributed across the huge and varied land and across different levels of educational institutions. We have emphasized too much the role of institutions and systems, and we overlooked the role of each individual. We have too much confidence in future technologies, which, we believe, would delete words like “restraint” and “preserve” from our personal dictionaries. We, together with our media, have cultivated a collective culture in which everyone is concerned about the whole picture and about the public affairs while in the meantime everyone is unwilling to interconnect their private life and personal habits with the betterment of the whole society.
“It’s deadline. ” one interviewee answered, “There should be something like a deadline that could finally motivate people to do and change things. ” But, is there a deadline for human beings in terms of environmental protection?
环保的截止日期
你每天要扔多少垃圾？我猜这个问题大多数人都答不上来。
我和大学里其他两百多位学生一开始也回答不了这个问题，直到我们开始记录自己每天产生的垃圾。这种记录对参与者而言说不上与愉快，环境问题专家更是对它不以为然。事实上，如果你不用“可持续发展教育”这种专业词汇装饰自己的想法，扮得一本正经，那你就只能一直当个学术门外汉。
记录的方法非常简单，不过需要一点好奇心勾起行动，再来点耐心坚持下去。试运行阶段，我用纸笔做记录，然而，为了做到省时省事和环境友好，我们的研究小组又设计了一个网页版垃圾记录表，通过社交媒体分享给了学生们。最终，两百多位学生参与了这个看上去没什么意义的活动，他们善意的点击给我们的研究提供了原始数据。
你猜这两百多位学生一天之内要扔掉多少份塑料制品？答案是549份，简化成一个等式就是：
200人x1天=549 份塑料制品
虽然我不知道这种数据到底要高到哪种程度才会对生活造成实质性的影响，但是我非常清楚，如果乘上中国13.5亿人口，我们身处的国家马上就会变成“塑料人民共和国”。
记录环节结束之后，我通过邮件邀请参与记录的学生进行访谈。比起解释数据，这十几个小时面对面的交流讨论反而更让我们受益良多。学生们在受访期间的反应和改变拓宽了我在环保教育方面的视野，也促进了我对中国环境污染全局的理解。
几乎所有的受访学生表示，这种自发性的记录让他们更能留意到自己每天使用和丢弃的各种东西。有些甚至说随着记录的推进，他们感到越来越焦虑。简单的记录让他们突然意识到：我们每天产生的垃圾反映着我们的经济生活，实际上，不管这是好是坏，我们的经济生活几乎可以与我们生活的全部画上等号。单纯责备政府不经大脑的政策或者督促工业领袖改革技术，这种事情谁都会。相比之下，承认一个尴尬的事实则更加困难，这个事实是：我们每天看似微不足道的消费习惯所产生的“微量”垃圾终会积沙成塔，积塔成山。换一个不怎么愉悦的视角看，我们在活着的同时也在创造着一个垃圾世界。
据说所有的社会运动和变革都始于意识的崛起。作为一名研究人员，我很乐意听受访对象说我们的记录活动使他们对垃圾处理更为关注，但是如果就此止步的话，本文也不过又是一篇精巧得不老实的心灵鸡汤罢了。不幸的是，所有的事情好像都仅仅起于意识，又止于意识了。
我们使用了三个维度来衡量这个由学生发起的可持续发展教育新模式是否有效：态度的改变、环保意识以及环保行动。既然垃圾可以积少成多，那么我假设环保也能积少成多：意识的提升会造成记录者的行为变化，从而由个体及群体掀起积极的社会变革。然而，令我吃惊的是，几乎没有记录者跟进后续行动，将环保意识转变成追求绿色生活的日常行为。“在这四天的记录中，我意识到自己每天都使用了一次性筷子，我想也许我该买一双普通筷子了。”一位没能将其想法付诸行动的受访对象如是说到。她就止步于意识了。
如果你想进一步问为什么，受访者会跟你说：“个人的改变在体制变化面前不够有力有效，所以我们不想做出个人的改变。”其他人在环境问题上则笃信先进技术的魔法而非个人的改变。比如说一位受访者表示饭盒用后要洗，太麻烦了。相形之下，他更愿意使用贵一些的可降解餐盒，没有洗饭盒的麻烦，同时也环保一些。
接着事情变得越来越有趣，因为我听着受访者一边聊起自身与日俱增的意识，一边又拒绝付诸行动或者改变生活方式。在我看来，记录者通过每日垃圾记录而积累出来的高涨意识莫名其妙地就转变成了一种集体无意识的阻力。单凭环保意识是达不成社会变革的。
所以现在问题变成了：言和行之间到底缺少了哪一个环节？
很多人认为知识可以填补这个空缺，达成言行统一。几乎所有受访者都达成了一致共识：人们需要更多教育。有一些记录者表示他们没有做出行动是因为他们不知道要怎么具体地、量化地处理环境问题。这种心态折射了中国环境教育、或者中国教育的总体现状：我们向学生灌输各种知识，从垃圾回收到气候变化，但是只限于由上至下的角度，这样一来，学生逐渐就没有兴趣和热情去由下至上地反思、自省和质疑。
如果中国确实有所谓的可持续发展教育可供我评价，那么它还远远不够，在这片广袤而复杂的大地上、不同层级的教育机构里，这种教育的分布严重失衡。我们过于侧重制度而忽视了个体的力量；我们过于迷信未来的技术，我们甚至相信这种技术可以使我们无需节制不必保留。我们和媒体一起营造了一种集体文化，在其影响下，人们看似各个都十分关心环境全局和公共事务，而同时又不愿意把私人生活和个人习惯同整个社会的进步联系在一起。
“已经没有时间了”一位受访者回答到，“我们应该设置一个截止日期来调动大家付诸行动做出改变。”但是，对人类而言，环保问题到底有没有一个截止日期？