I hate myself

I hate myself. I hate myself because I want to rant about this world's excessive dependence on oil, this world's excessive and gratuitous production and consumption (barring the millions in the poorest of nations who simply do not figure at all in our frame of reference) and my own inability to not be able to lead a life that cuts down its dependence on the modern forces of production and most unfortunately, consumption.

I say I love nature, and so do the millions of people who buy things sourced from factories consuming coal, fresh water, wood, etc and spewing out sludge and fumes. We all have this good intention in our heart and yet we just can't resist buying that new phone, or that new gadget, or whatever modern products that our bursting economies have access to.

That's what frustrates me. An individual is weak, and individuals form societies, and societies form government, so should it be hard for me to fathom that the global government structure will not be able to find a way out of this ravage of our natural resources because there is simply no other choice? Do we stop living the lives that we are living now? Can we change our lifestyle? Can we stop taking the bus, taking the train, taking the plane, or stop driving the millions of cars and other vehicles covering every corner of inhabited land on the planet?

There are still regions on that planet that host a number of species of flora and fauna and where the tentacles of human consumption and this need to be in control have not reached yet, and such regions have long been in the firing range of the numerous global supermajor oil and gas exploration companies, who are just salivating to drill. Since this whole world revolves around what the United States thinks and does, so obviously we need to pay attention to whats going on there, because what they follow in policy, they have a great tendency to make others follow soon as well. Of course, its not a one way street of course. When the world wants to get together on things such as Kyoto, then the supercop will have nothing to do with it. Sure the Obama administration is keen to increase penalties on erring oil & gas companies and increase their own ability to tackle disasters, both financially and legislatively, but what is lacking from the developed west, with most of the financial resources and talent teeming in their research labs, is the drive to discover and invent and strengthen sources of renewable energy. That hurts me. This should be a global mission, because oil can't be replaced overnight, but what this world can do in earnest, is find ways to make it more sustainable. Acres and acres of forests are being felled everyday in the Earth's tropical forests to make paper that will be turned into credit card mail spam and toilet paper for most of the developed world.  

Gratuitously consume, baby, gratuitously consume. 

Here I am, a treehugger worrying about what will happen to this planet as more people consume more and as more third world nations begin adapting the lifestyles of the rich nations, but the priorities of the world are totally different. A big multi-billion deal between two oil and gas giants from the western and the uhh, Russian world to drill in a most pristine Arctic region breaks down and the financial media reports that the failure of the deal puts the region back on the block for other companies to pounce on!  What hurts me most is that I am a foot soldier in the same economy and am too weak to do anything about it.

So the region that we are talking about in this deal between BP and Rosneft is the Kara Sea. Its north of Siberia, and home to a number of endangered species such as polar bears, walruses and beluga whales. According to news sources, this region is also one with very perilous weather, thus implying that it will be difficult to put in place the entire gamut of technologies and construction which will make drilling safer and less polluting for the surroundings, and thus if a disaster occurs here, then it'll be environmental armageddon for the entire region.

India and China, well, as so-called leaders of the third world economic renaissance, say that they can't allow their economies to sputter because of these so called environmental concerns because they have every right to provide their citizens with the same comforts and facilities that the developed world is able to provide its citizens. Point taken, but why do these nations miss the point that the third world needs to embrace nature and a more sustainable way of development not because the developed world is forcing it to, but because it needs to to ensure and strengthen its own long term survival. 

To give a small example - in a global economy, consumption leads trade, and that consumption, for the most part, is coming from the developed countries. Now what happens to the whole production juggernaut in a small country making cotton textiles for a European country when that European country is no longer able to pay for them? With the way Europe is going these days, I can foresee days of severe austerity ahead of them, and I think it was a long time coming. 

An issue raised today is that electricity produced from renewable sources, such as solar or wind power, is much costlier per unit than electricity produced from conventional sources. That is the gap that the world needs to bring together now. If the last two hundred years of innovation and discovery have shown anything, it is that the possibilities are endless, but only if the resolve is there. There is no reason why solar energy can't be harnessed more, by developing better technologies, just to give an example.

Why would it hurt India to prod every home in this country to go for rain water harvesting? Why can't societies and colonies across the country get together and collectively implement it? The same with solar energy. I occasionally read some commentary on how India gets ample sunlight throughout the year, and how it can be harnessed.

But but but, most importantly, the issue lies in not how we can feed our consumption better, but how we can make our lifestyle more sustainable. This is the biggest failure of our civilization, that we simply can't protect the environment from the spillovers of our lifestyle, be it dirty water which we fail to clean, dirty air which we fail to purify, hydrocarbon products that continue to choke and kill animals on land and sea, and our inability to use our own resources and technologies efficiently. I've already said it before and i'll say it again, humankind will kill all the species on this planet which do not adapt to our lifestyle. Dogs, cats, crows, pigeons can stay.