Breath of Clarity

Environmental Stewardship Yields Beneficial Democratic Consequences

My choice to evaluate Environment, a topic among executive orders, was sparked by a passion for the Maori (New Zealand’s indigenous population) worldview. The ancient philosophy asserts earth’s natural components contain the same essential vitality present within the human species’ spirit. Specifically, the Maori perceive wai-ora (pure water) as sacred because rivers embody the harmonious interconnectedness among all living beings. Insofar as the executive branch practices environmental stewardship, the force which unites people under a single essence is preserved. The executive order “Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes” (2010) is a stellar discourse, as it solves the democratic dilemma. President Barack Obama demonstrates effective persuasion by creating a policy which supports collaboration between opposite partisan groups. The president empowers all citizens, as the order’s collective support group makes the reasoned choice to protect the planet.

However, the support group doesn’t equate to a reelection constituency because the environment is not a popular issue. The claim is evident, as we consider there’s a low quantity of executive orders written about the environment. Less than three percent (approximately 5/230) of President Obama’s executive orders concern the environment. The lack of excessive information about environmental policy is beneficial, as Americans often struggle with “making effective use of the information available to them, sorting that which is useful from that which is not” (Lupia, McCubbins 378). There’s a specific quality executive order, useful to produce harmony both within and outside the governmental institution, included in the topic’s collection. The findings are not surprising because minimal attention towards the environment reflects the president’s desire to be reelected, since Obama is financially supported by corporations who exploit natural resources to maximize profit. The rest of the analysis focuses on the single quality order, which makes the environment’s topic representation democratically beneficial.

The president unconventionally satisfies both the capitalist conservatives and the socialist liberals. Water bodies stimulate the economy by creating jobs for service workers, who will increase demand for corporate goods. The document is “a simple piece of information [which] can prove the knowledge people need […] to derive predictions about the future consequences of their actions” (378). The executive order joins seemingly oppositional groups together to create a beneficial end result. Therefore, the data showing solves the democratic dilemma, and is not problematic because it convinces individuals to reasonably practice environmental stewardship. The executive order’s framework is crucial to its democratic strength. In The American Political System, Ken Kollman attests, “which consideration ultimately dominates [the public] thinking about the issue may shape their subsequent formation of an opinion” (319). In this executive order’s case, the president recognized the citizens’ need to create economic incentive which elevates environmental health’s relevance. Democratically speaking, the collection of executive orders about the environment ultimately serve the nation under a integrated body the constitution originally intended.