Oh yeah! That’s exactly what’s up here, and happening everywhere. This spiritual and practical activity on the part of modern, westernized humanity has nothing what-so-ever to do with the said importance of natural environments protection. To the contrary, this activity — which, I repeat, has to do with a little more than just physical behaviour — works as the guarantee for faster and faster destruction of the life support systems of the planet. Some people may even think that’s good, as now that we are starting to despair here, and contemplating decades and centuries of climate change awareness, we would equally be better off should we all agree to hurry up and get this whole thing over and done with at a more precipitous speed: the general idea being that the human family has a choice here. Thinking ahead, we can either decide to protect the ecosystems of this planet, and end up having to endure several hundred years (a small eternity) of Weltschmerz due to the shared awareness of manmade climate change and other anthropogenically driven forms of biosphere destruction, or, on the other hand, we can choose to forget about it, and simply pursue the best life possible — which would be (as the majority of humans would have it) the American Way of Life, complete with two family cars, a swimming pool and darn costly hobby activities for the children. ‘Cause as it is: don’t we all essentially want what’s best for our children? – 
Of course: no politician in his or her right mind would ever dare to make statements such as these, right out, in front of a TV camera and a long row of microphones. Every politician in his or her right mind will certainly be willing to do almost everything that is within his or her powers to address the situation of global warming and climate change. It’s only that the powers of politicians only reach so far, and it is also that these are not things that any sane person would consider doing all at once and not thinking through these things in advance, and that we are still waiting for a lot of future technologies to become available on the market, and, er … yes: the answer is: of course we will do all that we possibly can to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; just not right now. A substantial reduction of all climate gas emissions right now, like, almost overnight, right, would certainly be an overly enthusiastic and rash decision. You know. –
Now, judging from what happened in Bali in December 2007, it is too easy for me to predict the way of thinking of the powers that be, when, in Helsinki, Finland, in April 2008, their diplomats and political cronies are going to restart the negotiations of a new and stricter climate regime, to be implemented after the Kyoto Protocol’s commitment period draws to a close in 2012. As a matter of standard capitalist world civilization philosophy, a simple, straightforward, and well-meaning term like overconsumption is certainly not going to be heard uttered; not in front of TV cameras and microphone rows, for sure. And the same goes for the meetings scheduled to take place in Copenhagen in 2009: none of those words and terms which are forbidden according to the structural laws of globalized capitalism, will be heard. Well, not so long as the growth cult can continue to call all of the shots here. I think that will last a while. As far as I’m concerned it can equally last forever. And I say that, knowing that there can hardly be no stopping the growth machine so long as it is protected by all the political institutions of this planet, all the armies of the planet, all the banks, ensurance companies, stock exchanges, and other financial institutions, all the loyal servants of the mass medias, and all the likewise loyal servants of the workers unions of this planet: all of whom are there to protect the status quo and actually make sure that nothing bad ever happens to any of the big industrial companies and corporations of this world, on which whole societies, whole countries, and whole populations of loyal and hard working individual human beings depend.
It’s all one helluva a Catch 22 situation, for short: “a situation in which multiple probabilistic events exist, and the desireable outcome is an AND join of these events, however there is zero probability of this occurrence.” I’m thinking this is also going to be the sad case of a Murphy’s Law situation. — “If there’s more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way.” The simple fact is: even if the politicians wants to do good for a change, there’s no way they can do that if the population in general doesn’t lift a finger to allow anything out of the ordinary to happen. So we allow ourselves to feign ignorance of problems with the atmosphere that we are all well aware of, and of problems concerned with chaotic weather patterns and climate systems that seem to be going crazy; a development that is already felt.
I hear that quite a few people take an interest in what might happen to life as we know it. But what is life as we know it? Isn’t it the everlasting pursuit of happiness, a husband or a wife, three children and a few good friends, plus a good and well paid job, a comfortable house with a garden, a good car in the garage, life, health and property ensurances in order, and the perfect pensions scheme awaiting for idle years to come. And a holiday in the tropics of course. Well, once in a while. If and when you can afford to go. It’s good to have something to dream of.
Does life as we know it have anything much to do with ecosystems protection? Not much. Some of us recycle bits and pieces of thrash, and that’s it really. If at all you own a car, you probably use it more often than you need to. And if, for some reason, you need to travel farther than 500 kilometers and don’t want to go by car, you’ll probably prefer an airline ticket rather than making the trip by train. When you get to your destination you will be going to sleep inside a house or a flat that is fixed up with a refrigerator, airconditioning systems, and burglary proof windows. And all this is if you are a middle class citizen of Dangeria. For the Dangerian working lower class the situation is a bit different, of course. But who’s telling whom to be worried about what, eh? Illiterate people only have themselves to blame, really. Isn’t it?
These days, every people and every nation state of the whole wide world wants to be a little bit more like the United States of America. And all the people of this world are quite ready for such a development, to say the least. Now, the ruling upper classes of all the kingdoms and republics of this world are promising their people to make good progress in the duration of the next few years in order to facilitate for gross Americanization of their societies. There is going to be food for all, of course, but also electricity for all, and also safe water supply, new sewers, new roads, and new airports, and international broadcasting systems available to the people in the countryside. New schools, for God’s sake! And new shopping malls which are going to take over for the outdoor market places. And, of course, new hospitals. New hospitals everywhere. – A guaranteed vote winner, for sure. — And if anybody’s worried about the who’s and how’s all developments payments, they should just shut their mouths up and mind their own business, as the entrepreneurs are indeed talking seriously big business here, alright?! So don’t ask questions. Enjoy.
And all the while the population keeps growing. More and more people are searching to buy scarcer and scarcer plots of land. The land price is sky-rocketing, and the scarcity of fresh water is not somewhere in the horizon. It’s simply to be discovered as you find that you need to buy water from a tank and store it in the backyard. And the city air is filled with smoke. With smog. With all sorts of particles, toxic or not, but smelling. And the open sewers systems crisscrossing all around the slums. Have you seen the canals and do you know the stench?! The kingsize rats and the mosquitos and the flies, big like fowls!! You’ll need to take a bath at least two times every day. And as the population keeps exploding, so does the pollution of the air and the rivers; not only in the towns and the cities, but in the countrysides as well. The “population” of cars and airline companies also grows. The need for modern highways appear where once (not a long time ago) a dirt track covered the distance the old road is now made to pass. A new road is urgently needed. Useless politicians has made that same promise for years already! And hospitals. New hospitals are needed. The children are suffering from malaria, typhoid fever, sleeping sickness, and what have you? New schools are certainly in demand. The old schools are now crammed with pupils! And in the villages, the erosion of the soil has for a very long time created havoc! There’s crisis all around. Nobody knows what to do about it. And the politicians are all cruel military people and corrupt bastards (just don’t talk all that loudly about it, remember the night has ears), so what on Earth do you expect? Progress? Well, yeah. But slow. Very slow. Too slow. It’s not fair. Just look at this country (hush! hush!): rich with oil and all sorts of minerals, but stinking poor no matter what. This country should have been like America, I’m telling you. — If only our politicians would hear!
