By Mark Antony Rossi
I wrote a piece recently, entitled “Black Mayonnaise,” which laments how reckless manufacturers polluted the river I swam and played in as a child and how presently it’s impossible to bring my children to its poisoned environs. This situation, unlike activists who chain themselves to fences of nuclear power plants, is a story you won’t hear about in the media outlets. It’s scandalous but not sexy and obviously not worthy of major attention.
It pains me deeply how environmental damage is more consequential when it’s personal and especially local. What I don’t take serious is the so-called global warming movement which continues to rely upon doctored data from a faulty United Nations study and political agendas meant to gin up levies on energy producers to promote a dubious message.
A message when taken at face value is hostile and paternalistic toward developing countries such as China, India and Brazil. A message often at odds with common sense and fair play. While I agree, curbing pollution is critical to the long-term health of humanity the vital machinery of economies should not be in the crosshairs to settle armchair arguments. Such willful oversight of a nation’s desire to make better its citizens financial future is equally important as environmental impact. Perfectly clear air is irrelevant to poverty-stricken masses struggling to hold their heads up high.
The science of weather prediction fully equipped with ground radar and orbiting satellites is still not exactly accurate yet somehow these same scientists are certain the world is going to explode because an emerging economy is adding a few more power plants to its rural sector. I personally find it demeaning and dramatic to ridicule cultures attempting to feed their populations through more sophisticated ways of agriculture and fishing.
The clever solution from those whom claim to care about custodianship of Mother Earth is to sincerely understand the cultures using modern machinery and teach them to use it cleaner and safer to continue their society’s forward motion to the future. Adults of good faith willing to work with each other instead of lecturing one another have a greater chance of overcoming health risks to reap the reward of modern infrastructure capable of propelling a nation to the front line of economic promise.
Healthy environmentalism is rendered ineffective if it is not rooted in respect and reality. It is unwise and ultimately hypercritical to reside in a community that rejects recycling but preach to distant lands about their forest-killing policies. The surest manner to set a true example: fix your home first before you call mine a slum!
About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York.
http://ethical-stranger.webnode.com/
We are the true custodians of our environment, and if everyone takes it to his /her. heart, as you mentioned, the task is made easy!
Economic development should never come in the way of healthy environment ;
A right balance between the two takes care of the expected consequences, not detrimental to both!
The responsibility is common, and no one enjoys immunity from non-action in the matter of rendering the environment friendlier for all of us on this earth!
Well said. Thanks for the support.