Us vs Consumerism and Waste
Our race for technology leads to a more concerning problem, consumerism and the waste of resources that is destroying our planet.
The earth's been spinning away just fine for thousands of centuries, until man became 'civilized'. Manipulating our environment to suit our needs is something the earth could handle, even mining resources in all its ways over the decades. It is the last 150years of our 'civilization' that has endangered our environment. The culprit the waste created from, mining, refining, consumerism and creations of toxic substances including our engine exhausts.
The indigenous peoples of the Earth were living the right way, nature will take care of us if we take care of it and only take what you need from nature.
Using nature as drive for personal gain is something they all knew as wrong. And our 'civilized' governments deemed them unintelligent savages, forcing them off their rightful lands for resources.
Now science is realizing these indigenous people had it right. And yet these decent good-willed people are snubbed and suffer because of society's drive for civilization and consumerism.
Stuck on an endangered planet people turn to the governments for a solution. Which is foolish as governments are made up of people who are primarily lawyers or captains of industries in some form, not scientists. They only know how to put a monetary figure to nature, and nature isn't a man conceived construct.
G8/G7 countries have been gathering for years to figure out what they can to about our planet's welfare. What did they decide, reduce the use of fossil fuels and toxic emissions. However they created a point system for countries to use: Which refineries use to not reduce toxic emissions. A region may have several toxic polluting refineries, if there are other business in that region those business will offset the points system to say this country's refineries are meeting the emissions goal, and yet did nothing.
The next step in reducing fossil fuel use is the most frustrating idea forced upon the entire world, electric vehicles, more consumerism.
So if you're a home that has more than one vehicle you are in fact an issue.
The governments have raised the price of gas, not because of war, they already planned for this to happen before any war. The raising of gas prices was to make people consider electric vehicles.
However this raises many other issues. The average person struggling financially can't afford an electric vehicle and the electrical upgrades required within their home. Not to mention those that live in complexes or apartment buildings won't have places to charge every tenant's vehicle. To charge a vehicle will take hours so they are still only good for city driving.
We should be pursuing hydrogen power which could power aircraft. There have been inventors that have built engines in automobiles to run on natural water.
In the late 1990s one inventor traveled across the USA on water and then was possibly poisoned for it.
Stan Meyer had a working conversion that he explains how it works on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v3taL1wr07Sga&ab_channel=delvis11
Yet the governments are forcing manufactures to sell so many electric vehicles per year. Even if 50% of homeowners have electric vehicles this still won't offset the exhaust created by vehicles that can't run on batteries; ships, trains, airplanes, rockets, tanks, delivery and service trucks.
The race for resources to create large batteries will cause further harm to our environment. The Canadian government is using the tax revenue created from higher gas prices to begin mining these resources. They plan on harvesting resources within an area of Northern Ontario called the ring of fire. This huge track of peat-land actually acts as a bio-filter for our earth by trapping carbon gases under the ground. When they open up this land to create roadways and structures that carbon will escape into the environment. An 'expert' on the project stated the harm created will be off-set by the good that comes from the end result. A very upsetting viewpoint despite understanding because Canada has way too many regulations it will be done with more consideration than some other countries, it is still harmful and not confronting the real issue.
The Canadian government is also aware that there will be citizens apposed to this. In an attempt to avoid conflicts and protests the government refuses to reconcile with its indigenous peoples as they will be the first to stand up in protest with legal claim to the land. The Canadian government doesn't appreciate or tolerate protesting and has created acts to prevent further protests, seizing control of bank accounts by anyone they consider to be leaders of protests. The first nations of Canada don't fear this, as they have no real money.
Now that gas prices are higher the cost of living for all has increased, as businesses need to compensate for the higher cost of delivery and products.
More people are ending up going to food banks to offset the cost of rent.
Unable to afford the higher cost of rents more addicts will end up on the streets, begging, stealing and causing problems when frustrated with their life.
I can only imagine what's happening in poorer nations.
In the United States violent crimes and shooting sprees seem to be a daily event they live with.
The rate of suicide must be higher than the great depression of the 1920s.
With the earth in such a precarious state it's not surprising billionaire's like Elon Musk have their sight set on getting off the planet. Would he/they be willing to create a more responsible society or would it be the same just destroying other planets?
*In the end it's not the governments that need to do better, its up to each individual to do better. Which can be done simply without costing us anything extra, use less and buy less, reduce the amount of resources used. If possible buy secondhand instead of new.*
In North America many after shopping realize they've forgotten something insignificant but insist they must go back out to pick it up. Stopping this behavior alone reduces waste of fossil fuels and emissions.
Online shopping needs to be addressed, reduced or stopped, as so much packaging goes to waste, just for shipping things. Again paper and plastic resources are used up not to mention again the fossil fuels burnt up delivering all the materials.
*Shop local to reduce waste and support your community.
Stop supporting corporations before they attempt to dictate how we live our lives.
From working in a consumer goods recycling center I had a first hand understanding of a huge issue with consumerism.
Buying stuff that isn't needed, used or barely used.
The recycling center handled unwanted goods from their secondhand stores. These stores, in five main cities of my area, are supported by approximately a million citizens. The amount of donated goods are so great these secondhand stores can change their inventory every three months. Wal-mart doesn't change inventory this much.
The unwanted items end up in the recycling center to be divided into lots bought by others;
electronics sent back overseas are broken down to be further recycled.
Books gathered in cardboard boxes, homeless people could live in, are occasionally bought by private bookstore owners hoping to find rare editions. More often the books are sent to be recycled.
Toys, glassware and kitchen pots were to be resold in a poor country.
Bedding, cloth materials and clothing were bundled up and shipped in bulk across the ocean to either be shredded into rags or if in good condition resold. (I felt bad for the suits and dresses tossed in and compacted for shipping. I was disgusted by the amount of SOILED undergarments, mainly women's, that were donated. Every day we'd see several autographed sports jerseys)
Anything metal was tossed into a bin to head to the scrap-yard (The shame was tossing out perfectly fine and sometimes collectible goods)
What I found most upsetting was 5% of everything handled was brand new, still in their original packaging; electronics, kitchenware, tools, plumbing, light fixtures, underwear.
All that wasted goods and people keep buying.
Wanting to be a writer I don't want to see dozens of copies of something I wrote become waste, I'd rather they weren't printed at all. Maybe ebooks is better for us in the long run.
A disappointment to working at this recycling center the employees were not to take any of the goods home, for their use or resale.
Instead we crate up and ship off our unwanted purchases. Most of it headed back to the countries they were made in, to be bought by those who couldn't afford to buy it new.
