When I was eight, I arranged to have a special meeting with my elementary school principal to convince her that we needed a compost pile in the backyard of our school. I explained to her how we would collect apple cores and banana peels and put them in a pile to make dirt for the school garden. Without much thought, she mentioned something about decaying food attracting animals and vetoed my idea.

I had read about composting in 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth, and I thought it was something new I could do. I had already made my mother put a brick in the toilet tank to reduce the amount of water we used, and I pleaded with her to buy a low-flow showerhead, despite the fact that I was already doing my part by going as long as possible without bathing. I used a lunch box instead of a brown paper bag, even though lunch boxes were no longer cool. I tried to do as many of the “50 Simple Things” as I could.

This behavior continued throughout the rest of my schooling, as I was constantly picking recyclables out of trash cans, turning off the lights when my class went out for recess, and cutting the dreaded six-pack rings (only after assuring that all six cans had made their way to the recycling bin).

But the older I got, the harder it was to remain young and idealistic-especially when I came to Dartmouth. I was very happy to see the compost bins at the Hop and the recycling bins in the dorms, and I even became an ECO floor rep. But that’s about where it stopped. During freshman year, I became disappointed when I noticed that all the cups from pong were mixed in with the beer cans in a bin clearly labeled “TRASH.” But I didn’t boycott the frats or ask anyone to sort their recyclables, because-hey, free beer.

Gradually, I began to care less about the environment when it was inconvenient. There were many nights when I drove to campus, even though I lived less than a mile down Lebanon Street. More and more often, I got the plastic takeout containers from Food Court. When composting stopped, I complained to a few people and told them how I would fix it, but I never bothered to go to an ECO meeting.

When I was younger, it was easy to ask my parents to spend money on a new showerhead or on paper towels made from recycled paper. But now that I am on my own budget, I’m never going to spend twice as much on organic produce or steak from free-range cattle. It’s different when I only have so much of my parents’ money.
I still like the environment and care about the world we live in-I still do everything that doesn’t inconvenience me too much. I carry my ECO mug and my silverware with me, I will walk to the other side ofthe room to recycle, and I buy organic produce when it’s on sale. But beyond that, I’m just too lazy and don’t care enough to put in the effort anymore.

I’m not angry with myself for being less active. In fact, I don’t really care that much about my changing habits. What really bothers me is that I know for a fact that I do more than so many people. If I am at a point in my life where I care significantly less, and I am incredibly lazy and I can still manage to recycle and avoid disposable cups and silverware, then why can’t everyone else? My apathy is bad enough. Ideally we should all be at least as concerned as I once was. But this overwhelming apathy, to the point where so many people do nothing-that’s our problem. That’s what the remaining active environmentalists are up against.

Colin Powers ‘04 is a Cognitive Science major. For the last three years, he has mocked college publications. This is his first article in any of the papers. Let s all laugh at him.