14. Materialism Versus the Environment

I have previously highlighted my views on the average human's inability to put the environment on a higher scale of importance than say, purchasing a better model lawn mower than the neighbors just got! I now feel the urge to expound on this earlier opinion, as since writing that last splurge the gap has widened between mans common sense and just plain stupidity, re: the environment and its continued sustainability!

Today, as I was walking along the road I noticed that the street seemed to be full of SUV's with tinted windows so that nobody can see inside. I felt like I was being cornered by some high-powered Security Police (or the International Branch of the FBI) but in actual fact it was just some parents collecting their children from School! SUV stands for gas-guzzling status symbol - weird really as none of these mums could park so they were either curb-crawling or illegally stopped in the middle of the road thus causing mass SUV traffic jams behind! Stranger still was the fact that inside of these monsters there was enough room for a trampoline party yet when they drove away only two people were inside! In simple terms the stupidity of owning such a vehicle is enormous! Kaohsiung does not have the road size, the parking spaces or the need for four-wheel drives so …. It all boils down to 'an expensive status symbol', and the environment can go and stuff itself.

Across the road in the States were Bush and his cronies have quite categorically stated that they will not sign the Kyoto Accord because it would potentially harm the American Economy, some supposed expert has predicted that the amount of property damaging cyclones and hurricanes next year will increase dramatically - all a result of the greenhouse gases that the Americans are pumping out!

Tis 'Money' what makes the world go round!

Us humans seem to have this innate inability to not do anything to help ourselves; we shout loudly for democracy, we cry tears for the poor and starving and we continue to make money, to spend it on materialistic goods so that we are never one step behind the social circle that we create around us!

We were all so proud of the forests we had saved in Borneo; those that are now in the hands of Chinese loggers who will have shaved that land bare before we can blink our eyes! I Might go and get that teak chest of drawers I spotted in that shop down the road!

Those starving children in Africa who received our pound or two that we gave due to moral pressure from the media! Did we give that money to ease our own conscience or did we really mean it? And are those the same children that are starving today or are they the daughters and sons of the ones we saved in 1998? Must go and buy some ribs for tonight's party, might get some of that caviar whilst I'm there!

My new four-wheel drive monster-truck is fantastic! It can burn straight diesel or a sort of fuel gained from crops or something like that! I am certainly doing my bit for the environment! To be honest though I don't buy that crap crop fuel, doesn't give the whack of power I need when roaring off down the highway and anyway, nobody else uses it so why should I?

The news recently has hit us with plenty about the emerging giants, India and China! What is very well known is that these two countries are pumping out ever-increasing amounts of greenhouse gases as if it is a secret ploy to kill their populations by 2020! Over the road in the States, the country that pumps out a quarter of the worlds badness the media and the politicians are concentrating more on what China and India are doing than attempting to reduce or correct their very own polluters!

I know that I am writing this article for no end readership! Nobody is in the slightest bit interested in protecting the environment, not when it encroaches into material possessions or in effect causes a loss of money earned or saved! I could as well talk to a brick wall!

I do though see what is happening and I talk about it whether others listen or not! Many others know about it but due to required and future material wealth don't like to discuss the matter! Iraq, Afghanistan and similar projects of the US are all about Oil and gaining income for American companies operating abroad! Not much can really be said about China and India - America needs these countries to grow as in simple terms they make money through subsequent trade and cash earned through American Companies abroad!

The earth is obviously becoming an unhealthy place to reside in; no place will escape the acid rain, the nuclear fall-out, the smog and chemicals that are pumped with unfettered abandon into space! And we will do nothing - as long as money is involved we will watch the downward trend and ………………blame China, Blame India?

Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.Com
Copyright (c) Ieuan Dolby, 24th May 2006