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Blog Action Day - A Green Blog |
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Written by Stew
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Monday, 15 October 2007 |
 My colleague Ben, over on thegreenlounge.com, brought it to my attention that today is Blog Action Day. The scope of this years event is Environmental Issues. In honour of such an event I thought I'd spill my guts and contribute with a blog dedicated to my own views on global warming and eco-stuff in general.
The idea behind Blog Action Day goes something like this:
"What would happen if every blog published on the same topic on the same day?"
A Green Blog
It's not like watching Al Gore's slide show really hit me in way that changed my life, but it certainly helped me grasp the apparently sudden enormity of the problem. Whether or not Al is right, one thing is certainly true: the Earth is in big, big trouble, and we are to blame.
To most of us, I'm certain that the idea that we are damaging our planet in some irreparable way triggers a basic human response. Call it collective ignorance or plain dumb obstinacy, the human race is not very good at accepting notions as truly shattering as this one. We have a seemingly inbuilt ability to sweep it under the rug and simply go about our day. Tomorrow the sun will rise and another will begin. Dwell on inconvenient truths? Not humanity.
I hope, however, to see a sea-change in the near future, and the signs of this change are already starting to appear. I don't really believe that the consumer is at the heart of this issue. Business is. In most respects it is business that created the issue. The industrial revolution was fueled by the needs of business and any environmental revolution will have to be the same. As most companies now realize, being green need not be expensive in the long run. More and more research about how companies can save money through revising their current technology and adopting newer models that save money and carbon emissions at the same time is filtering through to business leaders around the world. These changes will take time to fully manifest, but manifest they will.
This is our main source of hope. The forces that caused the problem - the thirst for wealth and capital growth - will eventually become crucial in solving the problem. Eventually, being 'Eco-Friendly' will quite simply mean having an efficient business infrastructure. The 'Tech' industry has come a hell of a long way in the last twenty years and just recently has started to revise it's attitude to its own global impact. I reckon this is only a beginning. The clock-speed race for CPU domination between the big two is over. Begin the Green race. Let it become competitive to the point where it does some good.
The fear I harbor most deeply is that the old industries are hanging on for dear life and may not be able to reassess their role in humanity's progress in the same manner as the new silicon based companies can. Let me finish by stating that the combustion engine, in my opinion, belongs in a museum. Compared to what humans have achieved in the last hundred years, I simply cannot believe that burning fossil fuels in a combustion engine is still, more or less, the only way to move around. If this is true, it is quite simply a very, very disappointing truth.
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Supported by:
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kermit johnson
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Thank you for participating in Blog Action Day.
I did not participate.
However, I did write a belated post about an environmental issue that is important to me. I see a lot of people using a product in luxury homes that is very destructive in a number of ways. Check out this post, please:
BRAZILIAN TEAK FLOORS, SLAVE LABOR, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RAIN FOREST.
http://www.realestatetwincities.net/brazilian-hardwood-floors-can-you-say-slave-labor/
If this url was too long and got broken in the comment form, you can find it easily at:
http://www.realestatetwincities.net/blog/
Your blog seemed like the right place for sharing this post.
Whatever you can do to share this link or help promote awareness of this issue will be greatly appreciated. Normally, I don't ask for this kind of help, but the issue is that important to me. Most luxury home owners are unaware of the environmental and human cost of these products.
Thank you!