The Gulf oil spill is a wake-up call we will not heed. The smoker says, "I'll quit tomorrow." The ecocide says, "we need the oil, the environment will heal itself, trust in technology."
Wake-up Call:
The American dream and way of life is built upon ecocide – willful murder of the environment. Such ecocidal behavior is problematic not only because we are literally eating Earth to death, but also because Americans use so much more than their fair share of the surplus natural capital, relative to the family of nations, than can be done sustainably. It is deeply troubling – bordering on evil – that 4% of the world’s population consumes 25% of its oil. And now sadly the rest of the world is copying America’s conspicuous over-consumption as a way of life. In an over-populated Earth plagued by inequitable consumption, clearly there has to be more meaning to life than having more stuff, including first meeting all humanity’s basic needs.
The resources necessary for all the gadgets, cars, energy and consumption found in the American dream are largely being taken at the point of gun by the U.S. military, and through neo-colonial dependency arrangements between U.S. business and resource owners. 911 was direct blowback from several decades of such behavior. It is time to stop thinking in terms of tribal nationalism and embrace the human family; as ecological challenges including forest loss, water scarcity, ocean decline, air pollution, soil depletion, nitrogen saturation and biodiversity loss threaten to destroy all nations’ peoples. How many more U.S. soldiers must kill and die needlessly in foreign lands to support these inequities and unsustainability?
