Worth · to · write · about!

Money cannot be eaten. Of course we all know that! However, if we do, you would think that we would give more attention to measuring and forecasting the health of our natural resources that provide for those things we, and our children, really need to live: air, water and food.
Last night’s news item of impeding drought in Canada’s prairies, found its way onto the front page of the Globe and Mail today. The question is who will still talk about it tomorrow. In contrast Alberta’s revenues from the oil sands, which devour huge amounts of water and pollute it to such an extent that this threatened resource of life will be lost forever, are regular news.

Actually on a daily basis we are all informed about the status of the money markets and the economy. But how often do reporters bring us up to date on the state of our natural capital: our forests, prairies, oceans, rivers, and lakes; the stuff that provides us with our food, water and air. Why do newspapers have each day a full section on business? Where is the section that reads: Our Natural Capital, and celebrates those that care for it, protect it and restore it so that it maintains its life giving capacity for all of our future generations? When will we make it our business, to inform the public of what actions, and whose actions, threaten not only our health, but also that off all other creatures on this planet and of all our future generations?

In the end, are we not making money to buy food, shelter, clothing and water for our families, and ourselves, and to be able to maintain good health? Isn’t the ultimately purpose of making money to provide good health and happiness for our loved ones. What good will money be to us if those things which we would want to buy with our dollars would not be available because we made our money by destroying the natural capital that provides those goods in the first place.

The storytellers of a culture are of vital importance to maintaining the values of a culture. Our storyteller today—the media—keeps us focused on our society’s main value—money. It is a value that inevitably will lead to disaster because it does not reflect the soundness of our systems, land and people. Therefore it is up to us, the people, to wake-up from this trancelike state, and recognize the real priority in life—earth’s natural capital. We have to start telling stories on a daily basis that concentrate on what is really important, and demand from those storytellers who are supposed to report to us, to get their priorities right. We owe it to our children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and their children, …

"We have to be sure about the negative health effects before we can pull a product of the market," said an official of the Canadian Cancer Society during past Sunday’s CBC Marketplace documentary about cancer in Canada. What happened to the precautionary principle—the legal term for the commonly known wisdom: better safe than sorry? Should it not be plain obvious that when a country’s cancer rate has soared to such pandemic rates (1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will suffer from cancer in their lifetime), products with carcinogenic chemicals should be pulled of the shelves until such time it can be proven conclusively that they do not cause any threat to our health.

And why find the majority of our reporters it so important to talk so much about the potential pandemic of bird flue, which might never turn into a real human pandemic, while cancer in Canada takes lives on a daily basis. Why don’t we see some good investigative journalism, like in the Marketplace documentary, on a daily basis as part or our main evening news? We have seen how repetitive reporting like with the Tsunami can really focus the attention and efforts of a whole country on an issue to such an extend that real change becomes a reality.

The Canadian Cancer Society were short of many important answers, and they still will be tomorrow, unless our storytellers of today—our journalists—on mass will start to report on what we can do, and have to do today, to solve today’s ill and create a better world for tomorrow, rather than fuel fear and speculation of what might—or might not—come in the days and years ahead.

The long silence is over after my family and I spent a few weeks volunteering with Sustainable Harvest International in a small Maya village in the South of Belize. Soon more on what has certainly been a perspective altering experience.

But what I wanted to write about today has to do with what I saw on The National two days ago. They aired a special report about the economic boom in Alberta. They interviewed a number of people in Fort McMurray who all testified how much money could be made there. They also shared their long days, which could be summarized as work, eat and sleep. So what about life?

But it was the helicopter pilote who totally blew me away. While they are filming the smog above the oil sands and the vast areas of land that are eating away by monster machinery, they man actually says that it all has an evironmental cost. You can tell from his face that he is thinking when he says: "There is a price to be paid for it." But then he shakes that feeling that something might be going wrong and continues with, "But I would not want to stop this. It is simply the price we have to pay for it."

And in an instance I knew, why people on Easter Island cut down the last tree and signed the death of their entire civilization and the majority of people living on the island (see the book: A short history of progress). I am sure someone made a lot of money of that last tree! They might have made such a fortune that they were able to financially secure their children and grandchildren.

In today's world of global warming and rapid decline of natural capital can we really afford to pay such price. It is natural capital to provides for all live (including ours) on this planet.

People tend to forget that we cannot eat, breath or drink money. What is money worth to our kids if the air they breath suffocates them? What is money worth to our kids if the water they drink poisons them? What is money worth to our kids if the food they eat makes them sick? What is money worth to our kids if the earth they live on, once a paradise, has turned into a living hell? What is money worth ...? Is it really worth the price we pay for it?

For the last week there hasn’t been any evening news that did not cover the D. Emerson story, at least from the perspective that voters find him a traitor. And of course, each night when they air that position, the herd mentality of our species leads to more people to say the same thing the day after. But is he really? Could there not be an alternative perspective, which received hardly any air time at all?

The fact that Emerson accepted a position in government with a conservative party does not mean the man just betrayed all his values. Actually I would argue that he is more loyal to his voters then if he would not have taken the position. At least now he can make a difference in government and represent those that have voted for him. If Emerson is a traitor, what about all those who changed their vote from the Liberals to the Conservatives this time around? Did those voters change their values, or did they simple think that a Conservative government would be more effective in creating the country we as Canadians all want to see?

The media however, always seems to find great satisfaction in taking those down who made it. Emerson made it into cabinet, even when he was running for another party. I think it is great. It demonstrates great insight on Harper’s side for making sure that he had representation in cabinet from all across the country (lets not forget he could have appointed Emerson even if Emerson had not won the riding), as well as on Emerson’s side because he can represent his voters more effectively. After all Liberals and Conservatives are not all that far apart. They all want to solve the same problems (healthcare, childcare, …) but with slightly different solutions.

Lets face it, the left and right two-dimensional scale, which we use to classify political parties, is far out of date. It found its origin in 1798 France when the nobles were sitting on the right side of the king while the rebels were sitting on the left. What about other dimensions like forward and backward or up and down? Is being supportive of the environment left or right or forward or backward? Is it not possible to be green and conservative? Politics these days is not that black and white anymore and democracy ultimately leads to a wide variety of intermingling colours. Emerson knows that, most voters know that, hopefully the media will catch up some day.

I turned to livejournal to setup the blog portion on my website because it is free and without adds. This blog section will be my writing (rather quickly so it might contain some spelling errors), unedited (so my fancy NY editor will not review this and make corrections to my grammer--since English is not my mother tongue). However, rest assured that whenever some of my work gets published in book format, it has undergone multiple editing rounds and none of my dialect mistakes remain. So that's it for now, just wanted to create this test entry to see how the blog looked.