National governments setting a fine example to us all! March 28, 2006
Read an interesting article in the New York Times the other day. It was called ‘A gold rush at the top of the world’. The article was basically saying that certain nations including the USA, Canada, Norway and Russia are at last beginning to take the melting Polar ice cap seriously.
Great news I can hear you all say. Unfortunately it seems more a case of unbelievable national self interest and greed than a concern for the planet, the polar environment and its local populations.
Governments are getting excited because the melting ice cap means potential untouched riches ripe for plunder and more importantly who owns them. This great rush of interest for virgin territory is about natural resources worth billions of dollars. ‘Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the frigid Barents Sea, lured by undersea oil and gas fields’.
Call me naive but it leaves me speechless to think that this can be true. Do we give a damn about future generations? Do we give a damn about tomorrow?
Our governments’ attitude still seems to be plunder today and leave tomorrow to someone else, unless there is a profit to be made and it serves our own national (corporate) interest.
Al - ZooZoo2
- Posted in : The planet
- Author : Al
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