I recently read an interview with Peter Kareiva of The Nature Conservancy and how he is becoming UCLA’s Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. It struck a few chords with me.
I remember when smog was the issue of the day and our clean air laws went to cleaning up the pollution. As that issue started to improve, global warming and the carbon index became the talk of the town. Remember when the trash landfills were all filling up? Are there enough parks in your neighborhood? How about the amount of time you spend in traffic? Now the use of water is the big issue. All of these subjects are tied together by people’s values! What do you want in life? How fast do you want it? Are you trying to get a fast turnaround in your investments? Who wins and who loses? Your values set all these trends!
The human problem we are facing on this planet affects everyone in disproportionate ways. The poor have it the hardest. The rich get richer at their expense! The middle class is eroding very fast. The middle class is only a few hundred years old as a group. Capitalism is still a new concept and is being tested every day. Our countries freedoms are at risk due to the quick returns and lobbying against the greatest need for the majority of our countries citizens. Oil, the military industrial complex, corporations having voting power, multi-nationals, off shoring of investments and companies are all eroding our liberties. Are equal rights for all Americans being expanded or reduced and why? The planets species are being put in pearl or have disappeared from the earth. These are all very real issues. Every action you take as an individual affects everyone else, especially the people less advantaged than you. That occurs here in the USA and all around the globe.
When the future citizens look back at the earth and see what we have accomplished in relation to the damage we are inflicting on our world citizens and the planet how are they going to look back at how we treated the earth and it’s human population. Our actions fall into the anthropological and social sciences of study.
Are we being smart on the use of the world and citizens' opportunities or are we just trashing the world to make a few bucks in a few hundred years time? Or, are we using all our world resources for their best use, long term, to enrich the living systems of the planet? What are your thoughts? What are you doing to affect the honorable and ethical direction we should be moving toward?
