Save What You Love

Franzen wants to spread awareness of how far love can go, how far regeneration can go, and how far giving a shot can go. Love for the environment and the planet we live in could easily fall apart as it is daunting and grim even to environmentalists. Why? Because that would mean loving over billions of things, and our hearts are not big enough for that. Thus, he suggests focusing on those things that we love and protecting them. It is easy to feel hopeless when the enemy is many times bigger than you are, and feel like a small speck on a large battlefield. However, Franzen reminds the audience that yes, you can make a difference. Even the smallest pebble could make a huge ripple. But why would the pebble make the ripples in the first place? Franzen wants the audience to not look at the big picture and get overwhelmed but to focus on the small things and take small steps. He gives an example of the magenta bird. Everyone had thought the bird went extinct but then there it was making a comeback on a scrap of land. He recounted how just the action of one bird-loving family alone, saved a forest and thus allowed millions of birds to be born and thrive. They were not even rich, but because of the love they had for the birds, they found the strength and perseverance to make the seemingly impossible change.

I think Franzen’s solution for the crisis is to change people’s perspective on how to go about protecting the environment. Normally, when people try to encourage others to change their ways of life to save the environment, they bring up climate change and all the scary things that comes with it. Although people hear the message, they don’t listen. All because it feels like a threat for their future and their present has a better threat to worry about: work and so on. To change their perspective to focus on the people and things that they care about in the present would be more motivating. Also, distance does not make the heart grow fonder. Also, climate change is not something people care about deeply in their hearts. Sure, when it gets hot or extremely cold, we absolutely hate it and think about making a change, but once the air conditioner or heater is turned on, we push that idea to the side and live our lives.

Franzen’s ideas in both article and speech would greatly come in handy in my advocacy project. I think utilizing the ideology in this video would help encourage the general public and anyone who stumbles upon my project to take steps towards helping out the planet. As an audience member myself, I felt inspired by Franzen’s way of looking at this problem we have, and I am sure others will too.