 "Photo: LEILA ROOS/MANITOU MESSENGER")
I do not know if I’m alone in feeling that, no matter what I do, my actions have a negative and even world-ending effect.
I eat fruits and vegetables sprayed with nitrogen fertilizers that get into waterways and cause algae blooms. I forget to turn the lights off in an empty room, so more coal is burned, which increases global warming – I just killed more polar bears. And with new studies constantly being conducted to determine the impact of some action or another, it can be terrifying to get up in the morning because for all I know, the breakfast sandwich I get between classes is somehow responsible for the destruction of the rainforests.
Despite all the doom in gloom in many articles about environmental impacts, they are immensely helpful for us to read. They help us avoid the consequences we will suffer if we don’t change our ways.
Recently, one of my friends learned just how many gallons of water it takes to make a single pair of denim jeans. Armed with this information, he has decided to find an alternative to jeans the next time he goes to buy pants. His decision is the kind that people can make every day to make the earth a healthier place. Just like in elections where every vote does count, every lifestyle decision we make matters in the long term.
In my senior year of high school, my environmental science class spent a month learning about water resources. By the end of that month, I no longer drank bottled water because I knew that bottling companies, such as Nestlé, were depleting ground water resources at their plants.
In that month, my class also briefly covered the Coca-Cola Company controversy in India. Wherever Coca-Cola plants sprang up, water levels dropped, killing crops and forcing women to walk farther for water. Eventually, it got so bad that the women took to the streets outside the Coca-Cola plants demanding that the company cease its operations.
These women lived day by day, and yet they were taking time out of their routines to protest in front of a Coca-Cola plant. Clearly, something was wrong with this situation.
After learning about this issue, I chose to drink Pepsi products instead of Coca-Cola whenever I could. I know that this decision had absolutely no effect on Coke, but at that point in my life, it was still a significant decision for me.
Just this past month, I was faced with another one of these fork-in-the-road moments when I had to decide if I would do what I believed was the right thing or if I would go with the easy choice. I know that this sounds cliche, but it’s true. When I learned about Coke’s apparent lack of concern about the brutal murders of union leaders at one of its bottling plants in Colombia, I decided it was time to do more.
Now I’m going to be clear. Coke has never been proven guilty of having knowledge of “kill orders” or any of the other intimidation techniques used to break the union at the bottling plant. But at the very least, Coke’s attitude toward the situation is condemnable. Instead of sending a strong message to the bottler that similar actions would be no longer tolerated, and instead of launching an investigation into the situation, Coke ignored the situation with the philosophy “we just provide the syrup.”
I joined the newly formed St. Olaf branch of the “Stop Killer Coke” campaign. A group of dedicated individuals who are similarly outraged and driven to bring about change welcomed me. Our goal is not to single-handedly change the policy of the Coca-Cola Company overnight. Rather, we’re attempting to prevent the college from renewing its contract with Coke at the end of this academic year.
If our campaign succeeds, the loss of several million dollars will not be a deathblow for the company, but it will be a message to Coke that our college will not continue to support a company that has such a blatant disregard for human life. Our message will get filed away with the other order cancellations that colleges around the country have already sent to Coke.
It’s important to remember that doing the right thing does not have to make an immediate, profound impact. Doing the right thing is just doing the best you can when a situation presents itself.
Ben Taylor ‘13 (taylorb@stolaf.edu) is from Hoosick Falls, N.Y. His major is undecided.
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