Now there’s a way that money hungry parasites can really suck the world dry, while continuing to feed bulging, exploding bank accounts – its called carbon trading. Essentially (and very basically) fat pigs in the first world – Australia, for example – can justify their considerable weight on our earth, by trading it off against the considerably less weight being exerted by citizens in countries like for example, Sudan.
Im sure you’ve heard of it, but it sounds strange right? Well, corporations and governments – all with UN assistance – are literally buying pieces of the atmosphere, and claiming them as their own to do with what they please. You better not be breathing air thats not yours or moreso, air that they’ve decided is best utilized by being filled with pockets of noxious fumes.
While its not a literal case of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane etc being packed in giant bottles and released in an African desert somewhere, here in the glorious land of thoughtless over-consumption, we somehow think that we can pay for the right to leave a mark that goes ten times deeper and last ten times longer than those in other ‘less fortunate’ parts of the world.
I use the term ‘less fortunate’ very loosely. – While technology and money may have allowed us to attain more possessions, better medical aid, more efficient transport and (am i overusing the word ‘more’?), our general well-being hasn’t shifted anywhere for more than 60 years. In a world where we’re constantly told what we want (take this month’s edition of Cleo magazine and its front cover “40+ things you didnt even know you want yet” … What?) our greedy, selfish nature is really just seeing us more and more dismayed with what we dont have.
Subsequently, we now think that in order to obtain these things that ‘we didnt even know we wanted yet’ (thanks for letting us know by the way – i was desperate to spend more money) we can live our lives ignoring the trail of destruction in our wake(s). Fuck the earth, i wont inherit it. Americans have the right to produce 20 tonnes of CO2 a year, just as much as anyone on the entire African continent has the right to produce (on average) less than 1 tonne. Fuck, America did all the work anyway, bestowing us with this glorious free-market capitalist-consumerist system.
And the more you suck up, well, the more right you have to rape. – Europeans 9 tonnes, Australians 18 tonnes and Japanese 9 tonnes a year! – Congratulations. Good luck to India, Brazil, Singapore, Thailand and all the other burgeoning nations, hoping to assist in grossly over-straining our home.
God. Im getting lucid here.
Why should we emit more, because we produce more? Why should we live above our means, because others are living below them? Why should we take more, because others cant take at all? Is this the true balance that we need? What gives us the right to live so easily, without consideration for those that live hard, and the legacy we will leave? What gives us the right to say we deserve a bigger piece of the atmosphere? What gives someone the right to care less, because others might care more? Because some others are forced to care more?
How about we all just agree that we share this place equally? How about we all agree that its time that we changed our way of living. For the better, and for the future.
nthng yu knw is evrythg 