tjvagabond004 (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tjvagabond004) wrote,@ 2009-03-04 20:35:00 |
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I just finished watching this movie:
Parts of it definitely came off as being melodramatic and it didn’t offer too much in practical everyday things a person can do to curb climate change, but it connected with a few other things I’m reading right now so I have these things swirling around in my head.
It’s a amazing paradox to me how oil and petroleum have empowered our civilization to advance in ways that we never would have thought possible a few hundred years ago, and yet at the same time caused so much damage. The fertilizers and farming techniques we use now have enabled a massive population boom that has never been seen by humans before, industrial revolution has created a surplus of goods and disposable wealth never before seen and has created a host of jobs for countless people around the globe. While doing this it has also created a multitude of other issues from climate change and huge rates of mass extinction to increased health problems like childhood asthma and poor water quality. I find it interesting that the very thing we use to produce goods for certain groups of people can end up harming others.
But (and I think this might be my point) not by harming people by default. I think the main issue with industrialization isn’t that it can provide people with more stuff, but that it can help nurture a culture of consumerism that can be so hurtful in so many ways. It seems so very critical to me to maintain perspective: that industrialization is a tool to serve the needs of people and not visa versa.
I’ve been reading this. book lately and it’s been making me think about how developing nations can lean on industrialization jobs as a means of pulling themselves out of poverty and gradually building a larger GDP. So the question arises: how does a community create empowering and dignified jobs that don’t have a negative impact on the environment and create a sustainable form of industry that will help that society both in the short and the long term?
This might be a really obvious thing to ask, but I think traditionally when I look at different forms of poverty it elects an emotional response (as it should) and I don’t look beyond that to the real causes. The more I think about it the more fascinating I find that all these different issues; environmentalism, public health, disease control, global poverty, etc. connect back to politics and public policy, it’s like it’s at the center of one massive, interwoven web.
I’m totally ranting and haven’t really said what I want to say and I’m not sure I can (I’m pretty tired and inarticulate), but I think it’s interesting the way that societies play off of each other and I’m trying to figure out in what way a person should direct their efforts towards the common good.
Parts of it definitely came off as being melodramatic and it didn’t offer too much in practical everyday things a person can do to curb climate change, but it connected with a few other things I’m reading right now so I have these things swirling around in my head.
It’s a amazing paradox to me how oil and petroleum have empowered our civilization to advance in ways that we never would have thought possible a few hundred years ago, and yet at the same time caused so much damage. The fertilizers and farming techniques we use now have enabled a massive population boom that has never been seen by humans before, industrial revolution has created a surplus of goods and disposable wealth never before seen and has created a host of jobs for countless people around the globe. While doing this it has also created a multitude of other issues from climate change and huge rates of mass extinction to increased health problems like childhood asthma and poor water quality. I find it interesting that the very thing we use to produce goods for certain groups of people can end up harming others.
But (and I think this might be my point) not by harming people by default. I think the main issue with industrialization isn’t that it can provide people with more stuff, but that it can help nurture a culture of consumerism that can be so hurtful in so many ways. It seems so very critical to me to maintain perspective: that industrialization is a tool to serve the needs of people and not visa versa.
I’ve been reading this. book lately and it’s been making me think about how developing nations can lean on industrialization jobs as a means of pulling themselves out of poverty and gradually building a larger GDP. So the question arises: how does a community create empowering and dignified jobs that don’t have a negative impact on the environment and create a sustainable form of industry that will help that society both in the short and the long term?
This might be a really obvious thing to ask, but I think traditionally when I look at different forms of poverty it elects an emotional response (as it should) and I don’t look beyond that to the real causes. The more I think about it the more fascinating I find that all these different issues; environmentalism, public health, disease control, global poverty, etc. connect back to politics and public policy, it’s like it’s at the center of one massive, interwoven web.
I’m totally ranting and haven’t really said what I want to say and I’m not sure I can (I’m pretty tired and inarticulate), but I think it’s interesting the way that societies play off of each other and I’m trying to figure out in what way a person should direct their efforts towards the common good.
