A Not-So Nice World—But Maybe That’s Okay

Another SIXOHDEAR candidate and guest blogger, Ken Meddock of Irvine, CA, took some serious thought about the state of our planet and us as humans. It's a different point of view, and your Santa Fe Mother Blogger encourages you to read and respond.

 

 

By

Ken Meddock

 

I suppose an argument can be made that 5000 years ago the earth was a nicer place to live in. You could drink the water in most streams that you ran across, the air was nice and clean (maybe a little smoky if you sat too close to the fire), there were no landfills to speak of, and we didn't use any of the natural resources that surrounded us that were not self replicating, I suppose because we didn't know how to. Every person, all around the world, used only his or her proportionate share of the resources that we did know how to use. Not like those nasty Americans today that use up 25% of the world's resources while only making up 5% of the world's population.
 

Now we live in a world not so nice. The average lifespan has more than tripled. We spend about a quarter of our time working, a third of our time resting, and the rest of our time playing. Plus, most of the time we are warm when it's cold outside. Cool when it's hot outside. Whereas we can't drink out of streams anymore, the water we do drink is delivered to our feet and won't make us sick. Nor will the food.

 
 

Those other parts of the world that make up 5% of the world's population, and use only 5% or less of the world's natural resources are called Somalia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Solomon Islands, Congo, Sudan, Angola, Guatemala, and 50 others I could name. And you know what? They all want to use up more of their resources. After all, it's not like America is the only place on earth that has natural resources. Every place has resources.

 
 

But we have something they don't have--a democracy and a free market system. Certainly corrupt in many instances (but at least we can weed them out when we find them) but still free enough to allow hard workers to succeed and non workers to fail. (The right to fail is a cornerstone in a free market system.)

 
 

But if you live in one of the countries above, you're screwed. You can't weed out the criminals when they're the leaders of the Country. (And if any of you dare say or think that Bush is a criminal, shame on you.)

 
 

Now having said all this, could we be nicer, of course we could. But we have demonstrated that we are the most generous nation to have ever taken up space on the planet. And it is only through our continued use of our resources, natural and otherwise, that will allow that prosperity to continue and to be shared around the world, at least by those that want it.