Taking Advantage of Environmental Degradation

In class, professor Sarah Ray prompted us with the question "If we will never see utopia, what keeps us doing what we want to do?" In context, this question means that if my future job is to create a better world, but I will never actually see what I am fighting for, how do I keep motivation? This lead me on a trail of thoughts that ultimately ended with me realizing that I will only have a job because of the current situation and direction that our planet is going. Of course I do not wish that this was the circumstance, but it has occurred to me that my future career is another part of nature being monetized for profit. This means that if there was an end point to the ongoing problem of overusing natural resources, then that would mean I would not longer have a job. Using one of the examples I said in class, if my job was to organize beach cleanups, then the only reason my job would be necessary is because the beaches are continuously getting to the point of which they need to be cleaned up. Hypothetically, if the beaches were permanently clean after one beach cleanup, then my job would be useless. While having the job of a community organizer to get groups of people to clean beaches is definitely a wholesome job, it also unfortunately relies on the degradation of the environment. However, with a less pessimistic viewpoint, it would make sense to view it as being a part of the solution opposed to part of the problem, which was my true answer to the initial question. Actually seeing issues and problems that are in desperate need to be attacked before becoming more of a juggernaut than they already are is what keeps me going. Knowing that even though there is a chance that the human race cannot collectively sacrifice enough in order to save themselves, but doing everything possible in order to at least slow down the rate of destruction is all I personally need. This conversation in class also touched a lot on the idea of "power," or lack thereof, and whether it is either a road block or actually liberating to not have any. Personally, I think that  there are perfect explanations for how the idea of "power" can be viewed both ways, but I choose to look at it more optimistically. Not because having no "power" is liberating, but knowing that the "power" that most of the people in Environmentally Studies are fighting for is the "power" of herd mentality. The herd mentality that has taken over the world that drives profit as the only thing that matters. Knowing that people we able to be coerced into believing that nothing else matters means that they can be convinced otherwise. Of course it will take a frustrating amount of time and work, but keeping an optimistic mindset is what the world needs.