When it comes to energy supply, people can be grouped into two major categories. There are those of us who believe humanity must soon come to grips with a vastly reduced energy future and those of us who do not. The only gray area I see blending the border of these two groups are people who have some range of opinion over the urgency of the problem.
If you believe in growth forever, if you believe Peak Oil and Global Warming are just socialist conspiracy theories, if you believe that some magic future technology will save us so we needn’t worry, then this post (and pretty much my entire blog and world view) is likely not for you.
But for the rest of us who (although we may disagree over timing, urgency and the best course of action) are concerned about growing population, resource depletion, climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity, I have a simple question.
How many ecosystems must we destroy before we begin to make the lifestyle change that is inevitable in any case?
Examples are numerous. Today’s example is the Sacred Headwaters Basin, and I direct your attention to the web site focussed on this one, www.dogwoodinitiative.org
The web site and video which I’ve reposted below criticizes Royal Dutch Shell for their complicity in devastating this large natural area in British Columbia. But it could just as easily be talking about another part of the world (in fact they draw a direct comparison with the Niger Delta) or another company.
But the real problem is not that specific. Instead, I believe, the underlying problem is that our culture believes to it’s core that mankind owns the world, to do with as we please, even if that includes destroying it. So there! This is the same logic as displayed by a petulant child would does not want to share a toy with a sibling and belligerently breaks it claiming, “It’s mine and I’ll break it if I want to!”
The difference, of course, is that toys are something we can live without.
The natural environment? No so much.
