Human nature to blame for environmental crisis Re

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The Woodstock Sentinel-Review — The world crisis that we are facing is much more than just another crisis.
This is not some easily solvable problem, like cleaning out a rogue state, or sending a few piddly foreign aid bucks to stave off hunger in some sub-sahara state.
There are no governments interested in this crisis, and to put responsibility on the shoulders of our world leaders is incorrect. It is the individual component of our population that needs to force the changes.
Governments do not make changes, they only enforce their personal ideals, and no government has come forward that truly will put the environment at the forefront of things, therefore I would suggest that the ideals of the government of the day do not encompass the environment. As well, Mr. Harper (or any other current world leader) was not elected to protect the environment - he was elected in order to forward the agenda of his own peers, and not that of the population.
Unfortunately, the environment was not part of the Conservative platform.
So, we did it to ourselves.
These very same world leaders are
highly financed by their corporate counterparts, therefore, they will not ever enact laws (to save our planet) that would impinge on the rights of corporations to belch out pollutants, create toxins and otherwise kill us all off.
It all boils down to what they term as “acceptable risk” in the quest for profitability.
Obviously, global warming is an accepted risk of industrialization, otherwise governments around the world would have moved to curtail their pollutant creating abilities.
The responsibility for global warming lies squarely on the shoulders of the world’s population. That is you and me.
In Canada, we suffer from rampant consumerism. Our quest to become a nation of fatties, driven by the drive-thru mentality of fast food restaurants has enslaved us into a requirement that we always need to be demanding more - at whatever cost.
We jump in our cars, drive two blocks, wait in the drive-thru line at the local coffee shop for 10 minutes with our car idling away and belching out crap for the people in the line behind us to inhale and accept our paper cup of unfair trade coffee (the new slave traders are coffee merchants these days) and drive on our merry way, only to toss out the paper cup onto the side of the road for someone like me to pick up.
Could you ever imagine a Canadian prime minister banning drive-thrus? That one move could help save a generation of people from extinction (or at least help reduce some pollution).
I’m kind of surprised that our current PM, who suffers from asthma, is not more pro environment, as his ailment is predominantly a result of environmental pollutants. The incidence of asthma has risen dramatically in the past 25 years; this coincides with the increase in global warming and other environmental problems that our world is facing.
I wonder how many carbon emissions are emitted each day as a result of drive-thru usage? Has anyone ever committed to an environmental assessment of drive thrus in Canada? If there is an idling bylaw, why aren’t the bylaw enforcement people out enforcing this at drive-thrus?
World leaders are just world leaders - nothing important, nothing good.
If we want to change some things, lets take a look at ourselves.
This year I needed a new lawn mower so I bought an old school, old fashioned rotary mower. No engine, no gas. No spewing or belching of smokey gas exhaust flying into my face anymore. Just the simplistic whir of spinning wheels and metal blades breaking the silence now.
It’s amazing. You can hear the birds sing while cutting the grass. And the benefit? No dead dinosaur juice to mow my grass. I’ve reduced my personal carbon emission level substantially, and on top, saved a lot of money (hey, the mower alone was half the price - and fuel is cheap).
Just imagine if all of Woodstock quit using gas-powered mowers. We’d be doing more for the environment than we could possibly imagine.
This is where it starts - with ourselves.
This reliance on an otherwise unreliable government has got to come to an end.
If we want to make a dent in the problem, it’s entirely up to us to make it happen by whatever means.

Godivas