In church yesterday, pastor Gregg - quite bravely - spoke about the environment. And, quite rightly, he focused our attention on the responsibility we Christians bear to be good stewards of God's gift to us. He concluded by suggesting ways we can reduce our harmful impact on the environment and pointing us to some web sites where we could learn more.
Somewhere towards the middle (as often happens but it's not Gregg's fault!) my thoughts started wandering and I found myself mentally back in Manila. I remembered the thousands upon thousands of buses and jeepneys in this city of (then) 11 million people, billowing impossibly enormous black clouds of diesel exhaust. On a normal day visibility might extend for a few blocks; other days it was a stretch to see across the road. But the air pollution was just the tip of the iceberg. The raw sewage, garbage and industrial waste pouring into the rivers and into Manila Bay made the Exxon Valdez look like a kool-aid spill in kindergarten. Sadly, Manila is not unusual; the same could be said of pretty much any city in the third world. In comparison to how massive the problem is outside our borders, it would seem that our most diligent efforts here in America could - at best - have little more than a negligible impact on the global problem.
Obviously, something needs to be done. But when daily life is a desperate struggle to put food in front of your family, the environment doesn't even show up on your radar. How, then, does the global community put pressure on the third world to address pollution without wiping out what little means of livelihood they have?
Then my thoughts wandered to the article titled "High-Tech trash" in January's National Geographic, about the West's electronic trash being exported around the world. Then I started thinking about everything I use each day: my car, paper, shampoo, razors, clothes, shoes, computers, cell phones, CD's, DVD's, TV's & stereos, musical instruments, electric & gas heating - it's not just the discards that damage the environment, it's the manufacturing process of all the trappings of modern life. I find it overwhelming, because the problem is far too big to be resolved by simply conserving and recycling: It's now a matter of changing our way of life, but we are hopelessly addicted to our technology, our comforts, our entertainments, our conveniences.
My fear is that no significant change will be made until the environment collapses and the change is forced upon us.
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You, my Friend, have written my thoughts and concerns. I, too, found my mind wandering off to various ideas, thoughts and place, but also to that very disturbing article in the Nat. Geo. magazine. I feel the dissonance in my life from having a comfortable life and a job which depends on technology and consumerism, against the knowledge that we (humanity) are using up our earthly resources quickly and replacing it with garbage, hazardous and otherwise.
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