Everyone is so concerned about the environment.  I think basically everyone in the world wants clean air to breathe and pure water to drink.  But the problem with environmentalists is that they are, as usual, too short sighted to solve the long term problem.  They think that by protesting by the thousands or by militantly taking action in their home country that they'll single-handedly fix the hole in the ozone layer.  Dream on.

I have a suggestion:  Why don't you come over here to the Philippines or other Asian countries and fix the problems here?  Don't you people realize the amount of pollution that hangs like a dark cloud (literally) over Southeast Asian countries and Central America?  Why don't you *gasp* actually put your money where your mouth is, buy a ticket, and fly over here to fix the heart of the pollution problems?  Get a hammer, some nails, paint, and a mop.  Teach the people about family planning and the importance of conservation.  For goodness sakes, do something productive for the first time in your self-important lives and enjoy a vacation at the same time!  For all of American who supported John Kerry, get over yourselves.  Your candidate lost.  You're depressed.  Boo-hoo.  Now take your depression and channel it into positive energy.  I can only imagine what good could have come to the world in the forms of new business and new jobs if all of that wasted campaign money, protesting, and activism on the web would have gone to the problems of the Asian countries.  There would be less outsourcing as a result...less direct foreign aid...less terrorism...less needless destruction of the environment.  It all could happen if you help us raise our standard of living through education and direct investment.

Now I'm not an activist, but rather a preacher of common sense.  I watch people throw garbage into the streets and defecate into the river.  I watch many small businesses throw their trash into alleyways where it sits for months.  Is it because they are malicious?  For the most part, the answer is no.  They are simply ignorant to the problems of which they are creating and have never been taught right from wrong on a global standard.  Their "big brother" countries don't do anything to teach them otherwise.  I know first hand as I've never seen Greenpeace in Manila.  Furthermore, the profit margins are so low for these companies that pollution control is only a dream.  Many dump wastes literally outside of their own organizations across from the bosses parking space with the purpose of merely staying in business.

People in the third world wouldn't harvest the coral reefs (to sell to tourists) into the point of extinction or burn rain forests to feed their families.  They do both of these activities merely to survive.  The wealthy nations are so concerned about both the reefs and the rain-forests, but they don't fix the endemic problem...the ignorance of the people.  So all of you out there sitting on boats in the middle of the ocean worrying about the whales, get off of your boats in the South China Sea and visit my neighborhood.  Once you teach my people about the importance of saving the whales and teach us efficient farming methods, maybe then the whales wouldn't taste so good.

February 24th, 2005

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