Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Are We Really Going Green or Just Talking About It?

Yesterday was Earth Day. Here in my world it is a big event. All the politicians do something for Earth Day. We gave out dogwood tree seedlings at the skytain stations. People loved it and because the dogwood tree is British Columbia's official tree it was even more fitting.
However, Earth day caused me to ponder the state of our world. The day should celebrate everything wonderful about this planet yet it seems that there is less and less that is to be celebrated. The way I see it the more we try to get people to recognize our responsibility for the condition of our planet the less successful we are. We carry on about how we should not use plastic bags any longer yet companies seem to pile more and more packaging onto their products and most of us still fill our shopping carts with it. We recognize our need to find alternate forms of fuel yet we stupidly start paying farmers to grow crops that can be used for bio fuels while 25, 000 people a day die from hunger in our world. The cost of food has increased so much that world leaders are talking about a world food shortage. Not just in third world countries, but in the western world as well. Could be a good thing as most of us are eat way too much anyhow.
However, what I think really bothers me is that there is a lot of talk about the global warming and pollution, but I honestly don't see anyone really doing much about it. Yes as individuals we try and recycle, use less, take transit, buy smaller cars, but the real polluters are the corporations and government seems unwilling or unable to make them come up with new ways of helping conserve the earths resources. Until such time as we either demand that corporations get greener or governments charge these companies enormous amounts for their pollution I doubt that much will change in my life time. So it causes me to wonder and worry what will happen in my grand chilren's life time. As most of you know I love nature and when I am snapping pictures of the beauty around me I wonder if it will be here tomorrow and the next day and the next.

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