In response to Norm Benson”s column “Will living simply help save the world?” in Tuesday”s Record-Bee, I was perplexed by his theories and his solution for today”s state of affairs. The last sentence of his article summed up his fix-all for the entire planet, “globalization.”
Globalization? Have we not learned our lessons from sending American jobs overseas to people willing to work for half the wage that American”s can”t even afford to live off of? Mr. Benson would see our whole country ruled by the corporate monsters that are killing our planet at every turn for their own greed, which Mr. Benson fails to recognize.
I believe Jane Goodall didn”t mean for us to focus on the amount of “stuff” we buy Norm and it”s sad you couldn”t see her statement”s meaning instead of singling out one word and running with it. You sound like you”re afraid someone is going to take your bass boat away.
It”s not about that at all.
Coming together as one people and globalization are two completely different things and only the 1st thing is going to help us now while the second is killing us.
Jane was correct. Industrialization and globalization have been responsible for the extinction of many plant and animal species in both the wild and our oceans. I don”t expect you to be concerned with things as trivial as never being able to experience the sight of an animal as rare and beautiful as the ones we will never see on this planet again due to people with your mind set Norm.
If you think populating the planet is helping things you are living in a dream world. Just because the area we live in here is spread out and expansive doesn”t prove anything about inner city life all over this country. It”s expanding, it”s getting worse, and your denial of said facts is 90 percent of the problem because people like you don”t care to do anything to reverse the destructive trends responsible for the destruction of our planet. You suggest we use up what is here with complete disregard for future generations?
Corporations like Exxon Mobile and BP, who spill millions of gallons of toxic waste into our oceans, rivers, aquifers and dry lands every year not only are slow to respond to clean up their own messes, but then they refuse to pay the fines for their infractions. Companies fueled by lawyers who loophole their way past every law meant to keep them in line, laugh at the waste and wanton destruction they cause and applaud people like you for supporting their atrocities.
One needs only look in our simple county right here at the mess the industrialization of countless vineyards and mining and their waste water and debris have done to what used to be a clear Clear Lake to grasp what is happening to the entire planet.
The solution to our planet”s current state is not globalization, it”s the realization that we are still on a destructive path and it needs to stop before it”s too late.
Mr. Benson after reading your article several times I have come to the conclusion that you are like a gentleman sitting in a sinking boat with 10 people. 9 of them are bailing the water coming through the hole under your seat and amazed that you sit there and tell them all to “stop bailing.”
Don”t worry, Norm, the rest of us will keep bailing.
Ben Shader
Kelseyville
