Friends!
Images can sometimes be more revealing than an article full of sentences and informational stuff. Check this site out, it shows the ice in the Arctic from January 1980 to January 2012 (you have to slide the bar from left to right)
All that new ice free space, which was previously hidden by ice, is the space the big oil companies want to exploit as soon as possible in order to gain every resource out of it. And they go and they do it, not consulting us at all, because the system demands it. If there is no oil, there is no fuel and all the massive production cycle of material goods we are so used to consuming literally stops.
People have to keep on going to work (using some kind of fuel), and the oil resource is still used for thousands of stuff we use: syringes in hospitals, the little plastic pieces that conform the netbook from which I am writing to you, shoes, chairs, door knobs, pens, toothbrushes, etc…
Oil surrounds our lives, we got used to having it all around us in all the things we do, and by depending so much on it the demand is consistently high and intense through time. Hence, it will always cost us a fortune… let us stop complaining every time anyone tells us the price of the oil went up again.
What did not get more expensive lately is water! (at least I pay around 4 dollars per month for water in my home expenses). It is cheap, it is a minor detail in my every month expenses… it is WATER, it is always there when I open the tap. But yet, if they cut us from the water line (an aqueduct is damaged and it takes 4 days to replace it) we get indignant about it. How come I have no water? Oh, no! They have to make me a discount by the end of the month. And not even mentioning the people who spend the entire day trying to fill a bucket with water for the family…
Water is also a resource, and is also scarce in the world… How come we gave more value to oil and managed to pay more for it than for water? Shouldn’t it have to be the other way round? Should a payment system have to exist while having well administrated natural resources in the first place??? These questions are more like a reminder, rather than a critic. We all already know the things we do wrong as a specie… but it is a reminder that things are still not right. We accept criticism, but it is up to us to enhance our knowledge in global issues and see how we can help.
Huge hug,
Brian Longstaff.-
Anonymous Mar 20 , 2012 at 12:09 PM /
Buenisimos los boletines Brian, como siempre!! Abrazo chE!!!
Luli Masera Mar 22 , 2012 at 05:59 PM /
Me parece que el tema del agua es un tema muy delicado, porque al ser un bien tan necesario, debe ser accesible para todos, y al agua en si misma, en mi opinión, no se le puede poner un precio, pero si queremos tenerla siempre disponible en nuestros hogares, entonces hay toda una infraestructura que pagar. Ademas el agua nos tiene que llegar en excelentes condiciones sanitarias y no menos importante debe ser devuelta al ambiente en las mismas condiciones. Lo mas injusto es que la gente con menos recursos, que no esta conectada a la red de agua son los que al final pagan los precios mas altos por ella, en terminos economicos y tambien de tiempo.
Brian Longstaff Mar 23 , 2012 at 04:45 AM /
Gracias Luli por compartir tu opinión. Tal cual, la infraestructura necesaria para llevar el agua a la canilla tampoco llega en la factura de fin de mes; o muy poco si nos comparamos con la gente que dedica el día a buscar agua.