Why Don't People Care for Their Environment?

So there's been huge fires in Lancashire due to the heat and police helicopters spotted people starting additional fires. But people disregard for their environment isn't anything new. A few weeks ago I went for a walk in the forest near me and by the river, it looked like someone had a picnic and had left all the rubbish from the picnic there. Also, the number of times I've been in public toilets and people have left taps running. It's like people just don't care about their environment. Why do people do this? I mean what's so hard to take your rubbish home or turn off a tap? And I don't why on earth someone would start addition fires! This sort of thing drives me crazy!

 

Funny you should bring this up. Just the other day I decided to go down to the river and have a beer and take a few casts. I got down to the rivers edge and started fishing when I started to notice peoples litter all around the riverbanks. I started fuming and remembered that I had spare garbage bags and gloves from work in my car. I put down my fishing rod and decided to spend the rest of the time picking up other people's trash. I was pretty much able to fill the bag. I gotta say it felt really good and it's something that I will make a habit of and I think other people should think about that the next time they're out and about and notice garbage in the environment. I know from now on I will keep spare trash bags and gloves in my car.

 

Because people who have no respect for life tend to not respect the environment around them.

 

Simply put most people think: Temporary Comfort/Convenience > Long Term Damage

 

People are selfish and like being comfortable

 

I think there are a lot of reasons.

1. Narcissism and not caring about others
2. Laziness
3. Limited thinking... a lot of people just dont think about the future that much and how their actions will effect things in the long term.
4. The fact that things will not likely get out of hand until after we are long dead, so again, narcissism. We pass the problems along to the next generation.

However, in good news, the next generation is pretty freaking awesome at this. There are sooooo many people these days who care deeply about their environmental impact. Even a lot of companies are getting on board with trying to find sustainable, reusable, or biodegradable products to replace their garage. Its actually super encouraging to see.

I follow a Facebook group for people who want to be more "zero-waste" and its really cool to see all the videos people share of new innovations coming out that could replace a lot of what we throw away. And just individuals, as well, who are trying to limit their waste.

 

Alot of people operate in a straight up disfunctional state. Were now a few rounds deep with this kids being raised in a 1 parent household with no quality time or supervision so you have more people missing lessons on basic values, common courtesy, no self respect any no respect of others. Unless they end up getting values from somewhere else or learning on their own, you have a shitty future parent with no sense of dicipline who has no clue how to dicipline, impart any type of good values or any sense of responsibility on child and doesnt see the importance of doing so anyway. The end result is often a functional adult who thinks like a child and sees no reason why they should respect the environment or anything in it.

I also think some people don't worry because the so called powers that be continue to shit on the environment on such a large scale that it doesnt matter anyway. If I went hiking on some beautiful trail and saw someone leaving their trash Id be a little annoyed until I started thinking about the big stuff:
-Governments having every option in the world for clean burning fuel and refusing to use it and filling our atmosphere with smoke.
-Oceans you shouldn't even swim in or fish due to radiation from fukushima.
-We actually have a mass of garbage in the ocean the size of a small continent.
-Governments that allow oil companies to frack with no intentions of stopping them

 

Because people don't know that their environment and them are one, opposite rather, which leaves us highly susceptible to greed and selfishness