The Audit

This evening I read The Audit, a short story by Rachel May, who is a Coordinator of Sustainability Education at Syracuse University. Read more about her here. This story was originally published in an anthology called Winds of Change: Short Stories about Our Climate. You can find the full text of the story here.

A visual representation of environmental footprint by country.

Anyway, moving onto my thoughts. First, let me say that I find this sort of story very interesting, because it seems quite plausible in the near future. There are already many places people can calculate their carbon footprint, or the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds produced by an entity, such as individual person, a group of people, or a company. One of these is through the EPA, and can be found here. Personally, I think it would be a great idea to force people to consume less. An unfortunate truth of our society is that often the only way to make people do things is to use money as an incentive. 

Speaking about the story from an English perspective, it is clear that Bill, the protagonist, is a stand in for us, the audience. At one point, the whole idea of a Global Climate Audit is literally explained for him, and thus for us. I usually don't mind this in fiction, but for some reason it really bothered me here, as if the audience knows nothing about the outdoors. Maybe I just feel this way because we are all environmentally conscious, (why else would we be taking this class?), and I felt it unnecessary to hit me over the head with the beauty of nature.

The one thing this story brought up that I feel I need to speak about is lawns. It opens on our main character mowing his lawn for god's sake. I really don't like lawns as a concept. They're a waste of water and resources, as well as space that could be used for useful things, such as gardening. There is a strange stigma about using your front yard for anything that isn't a lawn for some reason. As Bill says, "These are the suburbs. Everyone's lawn has to look exactly the same." To which his son replies exactly what I was thinking, "That's weird."

A drought resistant lawn in California.

There is a lovely article from the New York Times written in 2013 about some Southwestern cities who pay their citizen's to rip out their wasteful lawns and replace them with plants that require less resources, especially water. If you're interested, you can read it here. 

Anyway, that's it for now. Write to you later!

Danielle K.