This comparison in mind, the ultimate result in the covered dish is predictable. The microorganisms either breed to the point that they run out of food or they, before that point, expire in their own waste gases, pollution in their atmospherically enclosed world. Either way, there is a lesson for humankind.
At the same time, the pecking order arrangement, relative to our voluminous population, all but ensures that nearly all individuals in the labor market, except for "the top dogs," are expendable based on whomever, with the right set of needed skills, can be obtained for the lowest wages. As dehumanizing as this is, it is, in fact, the reason that jobs disappear from the US to Mexico in that the latter's annual minimum wage is set at $1,557-1,658 International Dollars, a unit of monetary measurement corresponding to the purchasing power of the $ USD in the US at a fixed point in time. (It is, also, know as the Geary-Khamis dollar.) It is, likewise, the reason that these same jobs, eventually, disappear from Mexico to other countries, such as China, wherein annual income expectations are even lower. (In 2006, officials in Guangdong Province set minimum wage according to five classifications with the highest being comparable to approximately USD $0.60/ hour and the lowest being roughly USD $0.25/ hour. In other words, there is no way that Mexico workers, and especially not American ones, can reasonably compete in the global market.)
Perhaps then, competition and not predacious capitalism, per se, is to blame for the sweeping demise of other species taking place, large portions of first world economies going belly up and other tribulations, such as global warming, worsening. If so, it is likely that humans just can find their own balance and place in the natural scheme of things.
Perhaps we are just a little too arrogant, materialistic and anthropocentric in the smug delusion that we, God-like more than animal-like, are somehow above and superior to nature. Accordingly, many people believe that the planet and all its inhabitants were put here because "... God saith, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth [5].'"
Then again, possibly our problem is simply that too many of us cannot look at a spring fed lake in terms of its sheer beauty, but, see instead... an ideal location for a Coca-Cola plant, a bottled water source, the makings of a gigantic five star resort, a family oriented water park, a way to provide water to a huge hog farm that we will place on its shore after we tear down the surrounding forest for lumber or any number of other visions to negatively impact its natural state for personal gain. In other words, the end result, regardless of the way that it's achieved, involves the permanent disruption of the natural world and the construction of something manmade in its stead for the sake of immediate financial recompense.
This is, of course, the same sort of consideration that drives Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policies in India and China. In tandem, the military-industrial complex in many countries are all too willing to assist when powerful industrial conglomerates team up with governments to force mandated changes on small, disorganized populations to ensconce themselves in new locations for the sole purpose of controlling and using up local resources. Insightful descriptions of this sort of process and the ensuing struggle can be found at reference six [6].
If we want to look beyond ourselves, we can blame the human dilemma on technical progression, itself, as is done by the writers of many books (The Postman, Antibodies, etc.) and movies ("The Terminator," "Water World, etc.),. Then again, possibly the fact that humankind is just a bit too adept, bright and capable, when stacked up against many other species, represents the crux of our difficulties.
Regardless of the reason, "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about." -- World Scientists, in a warning to Humanity in 1992
Like the pharmaceutical industry's management, that keeps asking "What new ailment can we make up, like restless leg syndrome or halitosis, to get people to part with their dollars," we just can't seem to stop trying to imagine new ways to advance ourselves at the expense of others. We can seem to stop turning everything of the Earth, including other people, into a commodity.
So what are we to do about this grave trouble? What IS a way out?
Most of all, we need to give up the illusion that all is well in the world because most of us have the same daily life as always, along with the same mindless sitcoms and news programs as ever reassuring us that kittens getting stuck in trees get rescued, the latest fashion is cute, the car accident rate is offset by better safety features, a new hairdo will perk us up, the mall is a fun place for pick-ups, sports stars exude raw manliness; scantily clad starlets, despite that they overindulge, are hot and similar such banal pabulum. All of this might create a sense of well-being, but it is misplaced and dangerous in light of the planetary perils that surround us.
All the same, there are more television sets than people in the average American household, where a set is normally turned on for more than eight hours per day and the typical person watches it for more than 32 hours per week, according to Nielsen Media Research. Such a pleasing fictitious world as the TV offers surely helps create the other comforting false world in which many people, surely, reside! With its easy laughs and distracting fatuous patter, TV can well help us pretend that all, truly, is pretty swell in life!
Besides, who wants to face uncomfortable harsh realities, anyway?
Meanwhile another way out of our dilemma, one with a little more impact, would be to think about the manner in which we live and whether there are any areas that we could improve so as to make less of an environmental footprint. Do we really need to have one more child, another consumer, using up and competing against ever so many others for the world's shrinking resources? At the same time, do we really need to drain the wetlands in our backyard because, while they help with natural water purification and biodiversity, we would prefer the look of green monoculture grass? In addition, do we really need that carbon heavy, extra jet trip for pleasure or business or can we find an alternative way to satisfactorily achieve our goals? Likewise, can we cut back on eating high on the food chain as this, too, has ecological ramifications? Simultaneously, can we buy less goods since the more that we rapaciously take, the more that the overtaxed natural world is forced to yield? Most of all, can we cut back on our energy consumption, regardless of the way that we go about it, so that we can slow down the ravage of beleaguered places like the Appalachian Mountains and Chukchi Sea?
According to Peter Marshall, "Above all, we should question the consumer ethic, which uses up non-renewable resources, creates inequality and injustice, generates pollution, destroys other species and upsets the balance of nature. The consumer ethic not only defiles the environment by creating undesirable change in the biosphere but also corrupts the mind and body by defining pleasure in terms of ownership and absorption. Waste itself is a human concept; everything in nature is eventually used. If human beings carry on in their present ways, they will one day be recycled along with the dinosaurs."
This in mind, each and every one of us needs to critically examine the ways that we go about our lives and make adjustments as needed. If we do not, we will have not only put our own generation in peril, but will have condemned future ones -- humans, other animals and plants alike -- to be at risk for never existing at all. Since there would be no one to take any responsibility at that point, it is up to us to take full responsibility for our actions right away.
Without any equivocations what so ever, let us begin now.
[1] The report referenced is: The Canaries In The Mine Are Dying - How Much Longer Until It Spreads To Man? (http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_william__080219_the_canaries_in_the_.htm).
[2] For IUCN's and several other assessments, please go to: Endangered species - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered), IUCN Red List - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List), Endangered Species (www.earthsendangered.com/) and Endangered and Extinct Species Lists (http://eelink.net/EndSpp.old.bak/ES.lists.html).
[3] For details, please refer to: Sex Genes Of Fish Disrupted By Common Household Products (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/0207300758).
[4] The harm of coal use and acquisition is exposed at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20862243/, Nevada's 'nervous energy' (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23279992#23279992) and CCAN - I love mountains: Take Action to stop MTR (http://chesapeakeclimate.org/pages/page.cfm?page_id=131).
[5] This quotation is taken from: Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, (http://bible.cc/genesis/1-26.htm).
[6] SEZ and Coca-Cola damage is described at: Special Exploitation Zones By Tejal Kanitkar & Puru Kulkarni (www.countercurrents.org/ind-kanitkar181006.htm), India Does Not Need SEZs – The SEZ Act Will Have To Go! By ... (www.countercurrents.org/dipankar210407.htm) and Coca-Cola, Plachimada, Farmer suicides, Maoists, cricket and... (http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/asia/india/coca_cola_and_plachimada
At the same time, the pecking order arrangement, relative to our voluminous population, all but ensures that nearly all individuals in the labor market, except for "the top dogs," are expendable based on whomever, with the right set of needed skills, can be obtained for the lowest wages. As dehumanizing as this is, it is, in fact, the reason that jobs disappear from the US to Mexico in that the latter's annual minimum wage is set at $1,557-1,658 International Dollars, a unit of monetary measurement corresponding to the purchasing power of the $ USD in the US at a fixed point in time. (It is, also, know as the Geary-Khamis dollar.) It is, likewise, the reason that these same jobs, eventually, disappear from Mexico to other countries, such as China, wherein annual income expectations are even lower. (In 2006, officials in Guangdong Province set minimum wage according to five classifications with the highest being comparable to approximately USD $0.60/ hour and the lowest being roughly USD $0.25/ hour. In other words, there is no way that Mexico workers, and especially not American ones, can reasonably compete in the global market.)
Perhaps then, competition and not predacious capitalism, per se, is to blame for the sweeping demise of other species taking place, large portions of first world economies going belly up and other tribulations, such as global warming, worsening. If so, it is likely that humans just can find their own balance and place in the natural scheme of things.
Perhaps we are just a little too arrogant, materialistic and anthropocentric in the smug delusion that we, God-like more than animal-like, are somehow above and superior to nature. Accordingly, many people believe that the planet and all its inhabitants were put here because "... God saith, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth [5].'"
Then again, possibly our problem is simply that too many of us cannot look at a spring fed lake in terms of its sheer beauty, but, see instead... an ideal location for a Coca-Cola plant, a bottled water source, the makings of a gigantic five star resort, a family oriented water park, a way to provide water to a huge hog farm that we will place on its shore after we tear down the surrounding forest for lumber or any number of other visions to negatively impact its natural state for personal gain. In other words, the end result, regardless of the way that it's achieved, involves the permanent disruption of the natural world and the construction of something manmade in its stead for the sake of immediate financial recompense.
If we want to look beyond ourselves, we can blame the human dilemma on technical progression, itself, as is done by the writers of many books (The Postman, Antibodies, etc.) and movies ("The Terminator," "Water World, etc.),. Then again, possibly the fact that humankind is just a bit too adept, bright and capable, when stacked up against many other species, represents the crux of our difficulties.
Regardless of the reason, "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about." -- World Scientists, in a warning to Humanity in 1992
Like the pharmaceutical industry's management, that keeps asking "What new ailment can we make up, like restless leg syndrome or halitosis, to get people to part with their dollars," we just can't seem to stop trying to imagine new ways to advance ourselves at the expense of others. We can seem to stop turning everything of the Earth, including other people, into a commodity.
So what are we to do about this grave trouble? What IS a way out?
Most of all, we need to give up the illusion that all is well in the world because most of us have the same daily life as always, along with the same mindless sitcoms and news programs as ever reassuring us that kittens getting stuck in trees get rescued, the latest fashion is cute, the car accident rate is offset by better safety features, a new hairdo will perk us up, the mall is a fun place for pick-ups, sports stars exude raw manliness; scantily clad starlets, despite that they overindulge, are hot and similar such banal pabulum. All of this might create a sense of well-being, but it is misplaced and dangerous in light of the planetary perils that surround us.
All the same, there are more television sets than people in the average American household, where a set is normally turned on for more than eight hours per day and the typical person watches it for more than 32 hours per week, according to Nielsen Media Research. Such a pleasing fictitious world as the TV offers surely helps create the other comforting false world in which many people, surely, reside! With its easy laughs and distracting fatuous patter, TV can well help us pretend that all, truly, is pretty swell in life!
Besides, who wants to face uncomfortable harsh realities, anyway?
Meanwhile another way out of our dilemma, one with a little more impact, would be to think about the manner in which we live and whether there are any areas that we could improve so as to make less of an environmental footprint. Do we really need to have one more child, another consumer, using up and competing against ever so many others for the world's shrinking resources? At the same time, do we really need to drain the wetlands in our backyard because, while they help with natural water purification and biodiversity, we would prefer the look of green monoculture grass? In addition, do we really need that carbon heavy, extra jet trip for pleasure or business or can we find an alternative way to satisfactorily achieve our goals? Likewise, can we cut back on eating high on the food chain as this, too, has ecological ramifications? Simultaneously, can we buy less goods since the more that we rapaciously take, the more that the overtaxed natural world is forced to yield? Most of all, can we cut back on our energy consumption, regardless of the way that we go about it, so that we can slow down the ravage of beleaguered places like the Appalachian Mountains and Chukchi Sea?
According to Peter Marshall, "Above all, we should question the consumer ethic, which uses up non-renewable resources, creates inequality and injustice, generates pollution, destroys other species and upsets the balance of nature. The consumer ethic not only defiles the environment by creating undesirable change in the biosphere but also corrupts the mind and body by defining pleasure in terms of ownership and absorption. Waste itself is a human concept; everything in nature is eventually used. If human beings carry on in their present ways, they will one day be recycled along with the dinosaurs."
This in mind, each and every one of us needs to critically examine the ways that we go about our lives and make adjustments as needed. If we do not, we will have not only put our own generation in peril, but will have condemned future ones -- humans, other animals and plants alike -- to be at risk for never existing at all. Since there would be no one to take any responsibility at that point, it is up to us to take full responsibility for our actions right away.
Without any equivocations what so ever, let us begin now.
[1] The report referenced is: The Canaries In The Mine Are Dying - How Much Longer Until It Spreads To Man? (http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_william__080219_the_canaries_in_the_.htm).
[2] For IUCN's and several other assessments, please go to: Endangered species - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered), IUCN Red List - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List), Endangered Species (www.earthsendangered.com/) and Endangered and Extinct Species Lists (http://eelink.net/EndSpp.old.bak/ES.lists.html).
[3] For details, please refer to: Sex Genes Of Fish Disrupted By Common Household Products (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/0207300758).
[4] The harm of coal use and acquisition is exposed at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20862243/, Nevada's 'nervous energy' (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23279992#23279992) and CCAN - I love mountains: Take Action to stop MTR (http://chesapeakeclimate.org/pages/page.cfm?page_id=131).
[5] This quotation is taken from: Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, (http://bible.cc/genesis/1-26.htm).
[6] SEZ and Coca-Cola damage is described at: Special Exploitation Zones By Tejal Kanitkar & Puru Kulkarni (www.countercurrents.org/ind-kanitkar181006.htm), India Does Not Need SEZs – The SEZ Act Will Have To Go! By ... (www.countercurrents.org/dipankar210407.htm) and Coca-Cola, Plachimada, Farmer suicides, Maoists, cricket and... (http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/asia/india/coca_cola_and_plachimada
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