Although I did end up having a brief environment related conversation with my grandmother over the break, I avoided having the discussion I should have had with my cousins out of fear. My cousins are slightly older, both graduated from college, and live in Pittsburgh. I dont see them all that often, but when I do I always notice the differences between their experiences and my own. Although they hold most of the same values that I do, and were raised in a more or less similar family, their actions and beliefs about the world are drastically different from mine.

The reason I avoided speaking with them was due to a handful of conversations I have had in the past with them, including one on environmental issues. Even though they are substantially liberal guys at heart, they tend to be much more passive and pessimistic about politics and social change. For some reason, they have gone through life with the understanding that big systems like government and the economy are neither fundamentally misguided or succeptable to change, so they have somewhat given up on supporting any real change. When I discussed climate change with them a few years ago, they essentially agreed with all of the points I made, but they refused to accept that any of the proposed solutions would ever work. They cited pragmatism and practicality when arguing about changing our transportation system, and hid behind governmental inertia to ignore claims that meaningful legislation to curb emissions would ever come to pass.

It seems to me that this is a common affliction among Democrats in this country. Sitting back and refusing to participate in social movements is easy, and the arguments against getting involved can be convincing. After all, changing the way we structure our economy is an extremely daunting task, and its hard to blame someone for feeling insignificant in the fight for sustainable living. However, I ended up regretting my avoidance of the conversation, because I bet that the new ideas that I picked up this semester, especially recently, such as leverage points, and Professor Maniates trinity of despair, could have been much more helpful in convincing them that their attitude about environmental change could be improved without too much effort.

I have always prided myself in being a pragmatist, and avoiding grandiose idealism, something that seems common in environmental politics. However, one of the many things this class has taught me is to never give up on long term goals, and to believe in the power and importance of every small step in the right direction. I hope the next time I see my cousins I will get up the courage to engage them about their beliefs, and maybe I can convert a couple more people to subscribe to a more optimistic and involved view on envrionmental issues.