The Voice of Nature

Earth Day, 40 years later, is a mixed bag of heightened awareness of the environment, while industry keeps polluting it in significant ways. The U.S., which is always claiming to lead the world in everything, is also its leading polluter and consumer of fossil fuels. Lots of laws on the books haven't really put a stop to the degrading of the planet by man's lust for economic gain. Lip service is paid to conservation, but there are always economic reasons to build more of everything, cutting down trees and covering soil with cement. The economic hard times has convinced too many of a false dichotomy : conservation or progress. People, then, are willing to sacrifice their habitat, in a blind pursuit of economic well-being.

As usual, both things are lost. Nature will have its revenge.

Comments

  1. Roberto Ariel FernándezApril 23, 2010 at 6:26 PM

    Alberto, well put again ! That dichotomy (conservation or progress) is indeed false. And, even if it weren't, "progress" mostly means that the rich must be left alone to do what they please (and must be rescued by government, that is, the taxpayers, when they go bankrupt or close to financial ruin). For instance, most people are not aware that in Japan -with one of the higher population densities on the planet- 70% of its land is covered with trees. That is, most of its land surface is forest ! That fact alone shows that in Puerto Rico, the developers, financial institutions, contractors and the local government have comitted serious crimes against us all, in its terrible practice of "covering [our] soil with cement."

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