Summary
In the article “Do celebrities help or hinder environmental issues” Dan Brockington is trying to convey the positives and negatives of celebrity endorsement. Dan goes on to say that celebrities do have some advantages when advocating environmental issues or any issue to that matter. They can bring in donations from their audience who admire them; they can also bring style to an issue and drown out the politics from it. However there are many individuals out there who resent celebrities thinking of them as being “fake”. Meaning, many individuals perceive celebrities as having their own agendas in mind, and their main goal is to sell whatever product they may work for. The idea of a population that resents celebrities can bring out a huge problem when people refuse to donate or believe in causes just because of where the message came from.
In the second article by Daly, the author leads off by differentiating the words growth and development. Growth is where something expands or becomes larger on a physical standpoint where development is where something expands or realizes its potentialities. Daly takes these words and applies them to sustainable growth. Whereas he believes is a contradiction on its own. Daly goes on to say something can’t be sustainable and grow at the same time because resources are being extracted. Since there are finite resources on this planet sustainability never could reached. On the other hand sustainable development can be achieved because it’s a more quantitative term rather qualitative. Daly then introduces the idea of how our natural resources and human capital are complements rather than substitutes, because you need the resources in order to build your capital. Ultimately Daly believes in sustainable development and hopes we as a society could one day accomplish it.
Similarities/Differences
I don’t really find any similarities between the two articles. One talk about the impact celebrities has towards environmental issues, and how their advocacy can be negative given their audience. The other article discusses how sustainable growth is a contradiction because something can’t grow with finite resources. Both articles do share the importance of environmental awareness and how there are many factors that influence our ecosystem. Overall I didn’t see many similarities between the two articles.
What I found interesting was Brockington’s article. I never really thought that celebrity endorsement could have a negative impact. I always assumed they are on T.V. because so many people idealized them. It was never brought to my attention that if you were not a big fan or if you despise them to an extent, their words fall up death ears.
