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Ecologic Efforts And Genuineness
These days CNN run a feature on the danish isle of Samsų; a paragon of energy efficient societies. Samsų is part of the danish government's efforts to promote the image of Denmark as a paragon of environmentally sound societies. Nothing wrong with that as such. Only, these days danish industry and economy has been rejoycing in the finding of large oil reserves in the North Sea: Enough, as it is promoted; to keep Denmark self suficient with oil until 2036... That's when one's just gotta stop and think the facts over an extra time: For if all this delightfully profitable oil is to "keep denmark self suficient" in all this time then one has to asume that so much more oil also means so much more CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere over that same period of time...For just because Denmark becomes self suficient and thus doesn't have to buy oil from elsewhere, it doesn't mean, of course, that so much less oil is going to be used.. It just mean that it is going to be used somewhere else. Either which way we slice it: More oil in total means more CO2 into the atmosphere in total... Except of course if everyone should suddenly decide to disband oil as a source of energy altogether.. Which appear just about as likely as everybody all of a sudden stop believing in competition-based market theory and start treating each other with genuinely nice and helpful. Lovely as some may think that sounds there don't appear to be much chance of that happening in our lifetime.
One really has to wonder about this peculiar state of affairs: Does those who are in the fortunate position of being allowed to prosper and be loved and reproduce not have any consideration for the basis of survival for their offspring at all? Have they really been bred to be so short-sighted? Not that I want to encourage violent action by any means. Still, in times like this one can't help but feeling just a bit sympathetic towards those "Earth First" initiatives where activists went out in the rain forests and hammered steel rods into the trunks of the trees so that rain forest workers couldn't cut down the trees without risking life and limbs.
Though of course one has to realize such activities how immediately counterproductive such activities appear to be, as they must immediately turn sympathies away from the cause. So if humanity is to turn this disasterous tide of its own making, what can be done? What must be done? Global warming is a not just growing, but even accelerating, problem: New discoveries of self-amplifying processes is continuously being discovered, and the forecasts of the inevitable rise in oceanic water-levels are moving ever closer.
Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this development is not its increasingly inevitable and disasterous prospects, as much as it is the increasing defaitism it encourages; the growing feeling that nothing can be done anyways, so let's just close our eyes to it and not think about it, and just accept that environmental initiatives are first and foremost political goodwill projects, because anything more genuinely constructive is not politically profitable. This mentality; this loss of hope, is perhaps the most devestating aspect of the development. And perhaps, just perhaps, this is exactly where we need to start if we wish to have any chance at all to be able to turn the tendency around.
Sadly, past experience does not offer much reason to expect any such hopes to be genuine. As it would have to be, as false hopes can only be counterproductive. For when they are disappointed - as they will be if they were not genuine in the first place - they can only serve to undermine faith in future promises and prospects. Therefor what is needed is not any more negotiations and hot air about agreements on quota, which noone seriously believe will ever be fulfilled anyways. What would be needed is nothing short of concrete, undisputeable results. Results to demonstrate clearly and unambiguously that it is worth he effort.