The newspapers, magazines, journals and perhaps several hundred books blare out the dangers of global climate change everyday! If one was to count the number of trees that were felled to make that paper on which the journal or the book was published, we would save a tiny but significant percentage of temperature change of our planet! And the bleaching of that paper would’ve caused god only knows how much harm to ground water! The contradictions with which we live today are alarming.
We complain about not saving electricity & how little water there is left on this planet; yet our conscience doesn’t kill us when we take our kids to Water-world parks in the middle of desert cities and we don’t bat an eyelid at the number of neon lights that flood the streets even after the last person in the shopping mall has left!
How easy for the developed countries to say that the developing world shouldn’t cut down more rainforests or clear more areas for cultivation of cash crops! How can the so called conscientious people of the west not see that the demand comes from the developed world? What else does a man living in, for example, Indonesia do when he knows that western companies will pay him more so that he can buy food – it will be far more expensive & time consuming for him to grow his own crops in his fields? Worse still his land would have been bought off from him if not taken away by the government to allow new crop cultivation or a new factory set up! The west has already ‘developed’ and everyday cable networks everywhere flash the exorbitant lifestyles that the developing countries identify with wealth. Thanks to sattelite television now even the remotest parts of most nations get a glimpse into that world. Wouldn’t the youth in the developing nations too be tempted to have that lifestyle? Why wouldnt they want to have that level of living… Now when the poor Naga man in the hills of north-eastern India decides to wear cotton t-shirts made in Karur (in Tamil Nadu) when foreigners come visiting, the latter laments at the loss of culture and traditional lifestyles & writes about the dying traditions. What else is that man supposed to do! It’s cheaper for him to buy that t-shirt than to spend days toiling & working on the handloom making fabrics that his grandchildren or children may not even want to wear. He too wants to send his children to learn English and earn money at par with the rest of youth of the country if not the world!

There are a million such thoughts racing in my mind. Please feel free to add, criticise, fight, debate or give your point of view. I’m sure it will make an interesting read! Please share.