BLUER than Green: Part DEUX
Who of you in Steemit land would like to kill polar bears?
Show of hands? Anyone? Anyone?
No?
What about baby seals? Who wants to go clubbing with me tonight? Anyone?
No?
Ok...
How about honey bees? Surely, those little stinging pests deserve a painful death, yes?
No?
Hmmm. I’m sure all my fellow Steemians can agree that corporations, or individual people, for that matter, can dump toxic sludge into the water ways of our world, right? I mean, that icky stuff must go somewhere, but not in “my backyard.” Right? "Out of sight out of mind." Right?
No?
Huh? Well, I guess you all must be ENVIRONMENTALISTS then, right?
No?
Why not?
Is it because when you hear that word, that “E” word, ENVIRONMENTALIST, unpleasant images come to mind?
Images of protestors blockading forestry workers and girls crying for “the trees” cause us to shake our heads or even to laugh at how “over the top” some people can be.
(
Seriously, these people, though well intentioned, put the mental back into environmentalist.
Due to the non-normal activities of these people the average person tends to want to distance themselves from such spectacles. That's understandable. No one wants to be seen as a wingnut, an extremist or a zealot. No one wants polar bears, baby seals, or honey bees to die. So inferring that if you are not "with them" then you must be for the aforementioned things tends to rub people the wrong way. This keeps many from considering the very real and serious issues facing our world.
Let's do a word association experiment, shall we?
When the word “environmentalist” is used, what connotations come to mind?
Left-wing?
Tree Hugger?
Hippie?
Greenie?
None of these are flattering titles. They may or may not fit, but sometimes perception is reality.
Most people can agree that recycling and not littering is responsible behavior, but some “environmentalists” take it too far.
They champion the idea that the earth is being destroyed and their collective life mission is to save it. Save it from whom?
Why, from us of course, you silly rabbit.
We are the problem. If only we were reduced, reused and recycled then "Mother Earth" would be saved. In fact, many environmentalist outright call for the elimination of most, if not all of the worlds human population. Don't believe me, check these out:
https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones
As I've stated in my previous post, this demeaning view of humanity is the fatal flaw in modern environmentalism. The goals of these groups of environmentalists may be noble, but their approach turns more people away from being truly responsible for the world around us.
That is why I am a proponent of Permaculture. Founded by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, these men clearly and succinctly taught that in order to be a good steward of the world around us we needed to follow 3 main tenants, or ethics.
1.) Care of the Earth
2.) Care of People
3.) Return of Surplus for the purpose of accomplishing the first two ethics
Bill Mollison expressed the Prime Directive of Permaculture as:
"The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children."
That is precisely what being BLUER than green is all about. Building Legacies Utilizing Earth's Resources.
My next post in this series with delve deeper into what is means to be BLUER.
Thanks for reading!
Great Post and I look forward to the next installment. But I think the concepts you give credit to Mr's Mollison and Holmgren for founding were around long before they coined the term. Sounds an awful lot like the aboriginal American's philosophy. Even some of America's earlier farmers followed those practices until the agri-chemical and implement industries showed up to "save the day".
I'm not familiar with aboriginal American's philisophies, but I will look into it. Truth is truth, no matter where it is found. I think Mollison and Holmgren were just the first to put the truths that had been around for a long time into a singular place.
Sorry, I'm still getting used to Steemit, I used "aboriginal Americans" instead of Indians. Getting slapped for not being PC can make you a little gun-shy. I'd have to dig but there was an American Indian Chief that basically said they didn't understand the white-man's concept of owning land, that it would be like saying you owned the sky or the air.
In the USA, these days, the usual term is "native Americans".
In Canada, we usually use "first nations".
But "aboriginal" sounds so smart. ;-)
Sure, but I don't think you are from Australia.
Damn, I've been caught red-handed committing "cultural appropriation".
In the 1990s, I bought and read a novel about a secret society of extreme environmentalists that tried to kill the whole of humanity with a weaponized virus delivered through the ventilation system at the Sydney Olympic stadium in 2000.
They were the only one immunized against this virus, that was extremely contagious, but the symptoms of the sickness started only after six months, just a few days before death.
Of course, a small team of Americans saved the world at the last minute!
I like those type of stories. Do you remember the name? It reminds me of a great novel by Tom Clancy called "Executive Orders."
No, unfortunately I don't remember the name of the novel.
I tried to find it with Google, unsuccessfully.
I have read several novels by Tom Clancy, starting with "The Hunt for Red October", but not "Executive Orders".
Great article. One of the reasons I am not an environmentalist, is that environmentalists do not appreciate or completely understimate man's ability to repair and fix nature, rather than destroy it. One kid did a TedX talk about how in a few years, he could clean the entire Pacific ocean.
Yet environmentalists with their government ecosystem regulations prevent his plan from being enacted. Governments get involved and nothing gets done, where as if government regulated less, we could just from free-enterprise raise enough funds to enact such a project.
Government is another reason I'm not an environmentalist. Nine out of ten I hear talk, are talking about how more government regulation is going to save nature from man. In the history of mankind, government has never been our savior, but people do not like learning from history.