That was one of the most poignant posts that I have seen on orchid.
Thanks for reminding me and other members.
Food was not shipped from the other side of the globe (possibly
where a large part of the population were starving) and then thrown
away because the use by date came up when it was still perfectly good
and wholesome for some time still.
Where does natural gas come from? Mostly the same place as Propane =
Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Saudi Arabia not from windmills or solar
power.
I’m glad many liked the post I sent on “green”… don’t give me
credit for writing it, this was sent to me a pretty good while ago
and I’ve had it in my save file. There was no author on it when I
received it in email, I wish there had been, It has made many
trips around “cyber space” so I consider it “public” to post. When I
was reading all of the “green” comments here, I remembered it and
thought it would be good to share. I’m not that “green” conscious, I
just consider it “common sense” in my everyday life… guess it’s my
age, and living in the middle of Texas, conservative country,
In my opinion making jewellery can never be considered “green”.
Too much brute force and high temperatures and rather nasty
chemicals. Some chemicals you can avoid mainly for your personal
health concerns but even really nasty ones (like cyanide bombing) can
be rendered non toxic.
After all the metals, tools and chemicals didn’t come out of your
garden. Most are shipped by gas sucking vehicles, many from 1/2 way
round the world.
Hell even the wine I might sip while reading Orchid has been shipped
2000+ miles. The computer I am using is far from green and is sucking
nuclear electricity.
Just remember everything we eat or use is either grown or comes out
of the ground.
Using a little common sense when it comes to buying & using a means
of transportation would help. I’m sure we don’t all need a Hummer, a
4 door pickup or a large gas gusseler to get to the grocery store or
where ever else we need to go.
I'm sure we don't all need a Hummer, a 4 door pickup or a large gas
gusseler to get to the grocery store or where ever else we need to
go.
No, unless one is in the military we don’t need a Humvee. But the
market does an excellent job of sorting it all out; If you have the
desire to drive this vehicle, you will pay more to get from point A
to point B than someone driving a more fuel efficient vehicle I’ll
never understand why the “greens” get so upset about my choice of
transportation. I pay for what I use; no greens subsidize me. If “we”
run out of gasoline there will be less greenhouse gas produced. Seems
like greens would want us to use it up as quickly as possible.
In USA the shoe is on the other foot, and green movement turning
industrial parks into the waste lands. The problem is that
environmental movement, whose point of view is actually very
correct and proper, allowed itself to be infiltrated by crazies,
and opportunist politicians
I have been to Russia and seen some of what you describe- the
relentless industrialization - and I know I didn’t see the worst of
it. I was only in Moscow and Leningrad (as it was then, 1989). There
was not much beauty to be seen. The goods on sale were poor quality,
the food was also very good, and everything was shoddy and scarce.
Almost anything which worked well came from Finland.
But I must disagree with your description of the “green movement”
destroying the industrial areas in North America. Those industries
were destroyed by their own management who are addicted and trapped
by the major defect in the capitalist system - which is the search
for cheap labour and “freedom” from regulations - which really means
exemption from the consequences of exploiting people… Every job
which could be done cheaply in a third-world country was exported so
the American workers could buy cheap goods from Mexico or the
Phillipines or India, all the things they used to make in their own
home towns. And the products were cheaper and cheaper so, even
though the Americans had fewer good jobs or good prospects any more,
they didn’t notice the problem for a generation or two. Now they
still don’t have jobs, and their children don’t have good jobs
either and, in fact, those children have never even seen anything
being made. Everything they buy comes out of a box shipped in from a
far away country. If some idealist wanted to open a factory in the
USA he wouldn’t be able to find skilled workers because the old ones
are dying and the young kids think life is about doing imaginary
things on computer screens. They don’t have intimate and deep
familiarity with the basic materials and processes of life. They
think you can get things by buying them, not by making them. But, ha
ha, they have no jobs so they can’t buy. And the manufacturers don’t
care because they can now sell their cheap goods to the “developing”
world. Soon the Americans will be poor again and they will work for
peanuts in sweatshops owned by the same industrialists, just like a
hundred years ago, and they will sell to the middle-class of China
and India what they can’t buy with their miserable wages…
All the big “systems”, capitalism, communism, fascism - they all
have the seeds of their own destruction inside themselves. People
learn from their errors, but only after the errors have been made
and the consequences have been felt, perhaps by millions of victims.
The “green movement” is as full of crazies as every other system -
wild-eyed, naive idealists. But they do understand the basic
underlying truth - that we cannot only grow and grow as if we are
some kind of cancer. I think in the end only a much smaller
population of our defective species can survive, or else none of us
will survive. We have had too much “success” for our own good.