How does the Turnbow family's financial struggle shape their decisions and interactions with others?

 

Thrown into an environment that is failing due to excess precipitation, the Turnbow family is left to act within their own self-interest and cannot afford to think of the environment before their financial hardships. On top of their monetary difficulties, no members of the family are educated enough to understand the environmental effects that cutting down the trees on their property would have. Dellarobia herself was initially concerned only with the appearance of the property following the lumber job, stating “They’ll make it look like a warzone,” naively ignoring the more crucial costs to the environment and local habitats the logging would bring as well (Kingsolver 40). Due to their social status and rural, poverty-ridden town, it is easy to understand why the Turnbow’s take the environment into zero consideration when deciding how to save their farm from being foreclosed.

                Following her time working and learning under Ovid Byron, Dellarobia reflects on the lack of education she received while she was in school to which Ovid is outraged by. She explains the split of social dynamics in the state of Tennessee, “cities on one end of it, and farms on the other,” and the elusiveness of money sent to the rural side of the state—the side she grew up in (224). This lack of funding and the rural lifestyle of the residents of Feathertown makes college “kind of irrelevant,” to them, which Ovid reacts to “as if she’d mentioned they boiled local children alive” (224). With little priority on academics, Dellarobia explains the impact athletics had on her town, with notable figures like the mayor and Pastor Bobby Ogle gaining their notoriety originally from success in high school sports. Without any focus on further education beyond high school, members of the Feathertown community, such as the Turnbow’s, cannot be expected to be knowledgeable on climate change nor the human actions attributable to it. The Turnbow’s financial difficulties and rural lifestyle also make their efforts to reduce their environmental impact limited.

                While observing the monarchs for their flight behavior, Dellarobia listens to climate change activist, Leighton Atkins, read off different ways to reduce her carbon emissions and promote sustainability. However, she finds the applicability of the methods to herself and her family difficult due to their financial limitations, stating that she can’t afford to eat out, she doesn’t purchase bottled water, she can’t buy things off of Craigslist because she doesn't own a computer and so on (327). Although he means well in his “Sutainability Pledge,” Leighton’s list does not fit Dellarobia and her family’s way of living. The pledge is only applicable to those who can afford to do things Dellarobia cannot. It makes it clear as to why the Turnbow’s could care less about their environmental impact of the logging and would focus more on their farm and its continuation by selling off the resources they have now. They cannot risk losing their family’s only possession and main source of income to act environmentally friendly while others will continue to tarnish the environment no matter what they themselves choose to do.