Manners and Environmentalism

American author Emily Post (pictured), best remembered for her writings on the subject of etiquette, left us with this: “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”

When Post wrote this approximately 100 years ago, it was clear that by “the feelings of others,” she was referring to “others in one’s immediate presence.” In the 21st Century, however, we need to define manners a bit more broadly, in order to include specifically the other seven billion people who are all trying to make their way through life on a small planet with finite resources.

What to make of people who have no regard for this concept?  Well, the very nicest thing to say about them is that they have bad manners.