![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherI'm old enough to remember when "Ecology" was actually a subject in school. They had an American flag with green and white stripes to symbolize how we were all "united" in our need to take care of the planet.
I really think that some of the kids didn't get the message of taking care of the planet and how important that was, as we have gotten to 2011 and we are dealing with some pretty dire circumstances, many of them caused specifically by giant conglomerates and corporations only interested in monetary gain. I'm guessing those kids were the ones that ignored the concept of what the Ecology movement was all about and probably laughed at or mocked the Earth Shoe wearing, folk song singing, hippie freaks that helped to found it.
Was it just the culture around the concept that made it so easy to parody? Was it the messenger, not the message that made this into a point of derision? I mean, I didn't listen to a lot of John Denver music either, but that didn't mean I was willing to ignore the concepts of things that would help preserve our world. I've always turned off the water while brushing my teeth, so it's a little shocking to me that people need to be told to do this, even now.
Of course the problem is that corporations are the biggest offenders when it comes to these problems. Plastic bag manufacturers alone are basically coating the planet with a polyvinylchloride like surface, and adorning trees all over with their works. But there's no hard line against them, no Eco-Police to patrol, to ensure that improvements are being made.
Don't get me started about the nasty cocktail that the Gulf of Mexico has become since the BP oil spill and "cleanup" because that alone is a microcosm of the very problems we have to deal with when trying to get a corporation, whose main objective is to make as much money as possible, not to preserve the planet we're living on, to do the right thing.
Here's what needs to happen. This is a global effort and it will require a global response. Companies that do things that harm the planet in the name of profit must be sanctioned. It's the only way to get them in line. The question is how to enact and enforce sanctions, and prevent those that are supposed to enforce the laws from being bribed somehow and not reporting?
Granted, we all want Earth to remain a viable healthy place... there may be other planets out in the universe that are capable of sustaining human life, but we have no way of getting there, and at this point no hope of even getting back to the moon, let alone exiting our own solar system to reach those other places. So we have to nurture the nature here. And as individuals we can all do things in our own lives that will cut back on waste, that will help grow things in our own backyards. But that still doesn't touch the companies cutting down the rainforests, manufacturing products that poison other parts of the world and not treating every place on the planet like they are intricately connected.
Earth Day makes me feel like we're running forward, but really we're on a treadmill and we're not going anywhere, and I want that feeling to stop. I'm looking to the experts in this area and hoping they have some answers, a plan, concepts that we can do, collectively to make these improvements... because, as we all know, people do want to do the right thing, but they need instructions on what that is!
I really think that some of the kids didn't get the message of taking care of the planet and how important that was, as we have gotten to 2011 and we are dealing with some pretty dire circumstances, many of them caused specifically by giant conglomerates and corporations only interested in monetary gain. I'm guessing those kids were the ones that ignored the concept of what the Ecology movement was all about and probably laughed at or mocked the Earth Shoe wearing, folk song singing, hippie freaks that helped to found it.
Was it just the culture around the concept that made it so easy to parody? Was it the messenger, not the message that made this into a point of derision? I mean, I didn't listen to a lot of John Denver music either, but that didn't mean I was willing to ignore the concepts of things that would help preserve our world. I've always turned off the water while brushing my teeth, so it's a little shocking to me that people need to be told to do this, even now.
Of course the problem is that corporations are the biggest offenders when it comes to these problems. Plastic bag manufacturers alone are basically coating the planet with a polyvinylchloride like surface, and adorning trees all over with their works. But there's no hard line against them, no Eco-Police to patrol, to ensure that improvements are being made.
Don't get me started about the nasty cocktail that the Gulf of Mexico has become since the BP oil spill and "cleanup" because that alone is a microcosm of the very problems we have to deal with when trying to get a corporation, whose main objective is to make as much money as possible, not to preserve the planet we're living on, to do the right thing.
Here's what needs to happen. This is a global effort and it will require a global response. Companies that do things that harm the planet in the name of profit must be sanctioned. It's the only way to get them in line. The question is how to enact and enforce sanctions, and prevent those that are supposed to enforce the laws from being bribed somehow and not reporting?
Granted, we all want Earth to remain a viable healthy place... there may be other planets out in the universe that are capable of sustaining human life, but we have no way of getting there, and at this point no hope of even getting back to the moon, let alone exiting our own solar system to reach those other places. So we have to nurture the nature here. And as individuals we can all do things in our own lives that will cut back on waste, that will help grow things in our own backyards. But that still doesn't touch the companies cutting down the rainforests, manufacturing products that poison other parts of the world and not treating every place on the planet like they are intricately connected.
Earth Day makes me feel like we're running forward, but really we're on a treadmill and we're not going anywhere, and I want that feeling to stop. I'm looking to the experts in this area and hoping they have some answers, a plan, concepts that we can do, collectively to make these improvements... because, as we all know, people do want to do the right thing, but they need instructions on what that is!