The world, particularly the developed north, is getting increasingly obsessed with issues of the environment and there appears to be a desperate attempt to mobilize the entire world with an almost messianic zeal to salvage the planet and consequently safeguard the future of the inhabitants of our planet.
The prevailing paradigm, until now, has always been: human development and advancement by any means. As a result, many nations over the years never had second thoughts about savaging, polluting and raping the environment in the name of development and advancement and in the process have ended up messing the delicate ecosystems.
Today we are being told by the principal perpetrators of the environmental damages that ‘something’ has to be done by all nations including those of us who are still ‘developing’ to reverse the degradation. Some years ago the depletion of the ozone layer was the single most important concern of the environmentally–conscious ones amongst us. All manners of predictions were made about the inevitable annihilation of all earthlings should we fail to cut down on CFCs and other ozone depletion chemicals. Kyoto was another global attempt to curtail the incessant pumping of toxic chemicals into the environment. Kyoto flopped as a result of the refusal of the US to agree to the quota and deadlines because it would have made the US economy less competitive. Then came carbon trading. Where nations or institutions could use their forest resources as a sort of counter-party to another entity that is prepared to pay them for the pollution of their industrial activities.
The latest buzz word is enoughism: the gilt-driven arm-twisting tool of the wealthy environmentalists to bulldoze every body into loathing over-consumption and the amassing of ridiculous amounts of material and financial possessions.
According to the gurus of enoughism, the incessant acquisitiveness associated with modern life can lead to dissatisfaction which, I am told, is the highway to most mental disorders.
Duh!, Can you think of any twaddle worse than this? This is so rich coming from those who have never experienced poverty in a life time! Do the proponents of this new-age philosophy know anything about the dissatisfaction of those who have nothing?
I want to tell all the enoughists: talk is cheap, give all your possessions away!
4 comments:
Amen! I hadn't heard about the enoughism and enoughists until now? That's the problem with the rich westerners though, they're so good at pointing their fingers at anyone, teaching the world what to do, when in most cases the problems are much more complex than what they make them to be. Too many of them have never travelled enough around the world and SEEN what is actually going on. If they really want things to get better they should make sure the riches of this world and their own possessions were distributed more evenly and fairly. I think that is a must in order to promote good and healthy/environmentally responsible development.
Welcome back Adaeze!
Brazil, Russia India and China (BRIC) as well as others are seriously taking all the necessary steps to develop their economies.
I don't think they give a hoot to what the enoughists and their like-minded are saying.
Let us hope Africa takes the route of the BRIC states to ensure a great future for all our people and not allow these obtruders to abort our developmental agenda.
Yeah I'm not sure you understood enoughism (as far as i understand it).
Maybe it'll have environmental benefits if you consume less but thats not the point.
Its action by an individual for their own personal benefit to not be swept up by commercial forces attempting to make them act against thier own interest (i.e to sell them stuff they don't need, can't use and can't afford)
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