Re: Is American culture inherently wasteful?

Description: It's not just Americans who are wasteful.

Is American culture inherently wasteful?

Hill:        Well I’d like to sort of turn that around because I really . . .  I don’t . . .  I don’t think that we are a bad people, and I don’t think we’re different . . .  Americans, Canadians, Europeans, like I don’t think we’re sort of that much different.  I think the way that we’ve gotten here is really . . . is absolutely understandable.  And there was a time when natural resources went on and on.  Like they just . . . there was an incredible amount.  And we really didn’t have to think that much about being wasteful.  And that’s . . . that’s sort of where we’ve come from in this last century.  And so we sort of . . .  I think we’ve in a way conceptually have sort of worked our way around the globe, you know?  We set out one way, and there’s like lots and lots of forests.  And there’s sort of . . . well we’re just sort of realizing we’re about to hit our . . . come to the end, and we have to re-look at how we do things.  So I don’t think we’re bad people.  We’re just sort of . . .  We didn’t look . . .  It was hard to see that far in advance.  It was hard to think that we would actually go through those resources.  And so now we just . . . we’re learning quickly that we have to have a different approach.

Hill: Well I think with . . . as with most things, like the answers are there.  Like there’s not . . .  The technologies, the solutions, a way to live a better, balanced life and get along on a global basis – I think it’s all there.  It just takes sort of the personal and the political will to make it happen.  So you know specifically green, it’s there.  Like there are amazing technologies and approaches that we can . . . that are here now.  And we just have to . . . we can really pull ourselves out of this rather quickly if we just get the personal and political will to focus on them.

Recroded on: Oct 16 2007