Saturday, March 29, 2008

It's official

Either my writing sucks, or most of you never click on links, or you have no sense of humour.

I'm going to blame the fact that you didn't click links for the reason why so many of you did not get that I was attempting to imitate the style of the blog-writer for StuffWhitePeopleLike. It's less painful than contemplating the possibility that I suck as a writer, and you do seem to laugh at other things I write....so nevermind.

As for Earth Hour, I do believe in being Green, I just hate the guilt industry that has built up around making individuals, especially women feel shitty and sad about their environmental obligations. Governments and corporations have total control of what kind of things appear in the marketplace, and we can only buy what is available, mostly lousy products that harm the environment, yet events like this are designed to make us feel like we CAN do something.

When in point of fact, events like this do nothing.

For example, a little while back, I had a chat with Glen Murray at a political event, (he is considered a sustainable cities expert, green guru, yadda, yadda), and according to him, there is not one family car on the market that is friendly for the environment. The Prius is too small for the average family to drive in and fit groceries or school bags in, and cannot be used by anyone who has to drive elderly parents or whomever around. And it has bad mileage on the highway.

There are no minivans that get decent mileage, and most so-called hybrid SUVs are only designed to get better acceleration. In his words...."Stop feeling guilty, you can't do anything as long as there is nothing on the market to buy, and it's unfair to blame families and consumers."

Now, can I do a few things around the house? Sure....but none of them add up to dick. A few kilowatts here and there is not going to do anything even across multiple homes and cities. Not compared to what industry and government can do. They have refused to upgrade our electrical infrastructure for years and years, and megawatts now leak from the power wires that transport electricity from the grid so badly, that we could literally not bother to build an entire nuclear station here in Ontario if we just upgraded those alone. Same exact situation for water and sewer lines. (Did you know clean water makes us healthier too? And leaky sewer lines spread disease and bacteria like E.Coli? Some people believe that leaky power lines cause cancer-can't confirm that rumour? And all that leaking from every where increases health care costs.....)

But fixing that might mean increasing taxes and spending on boring things, like sewers, instead of *cool* *exciting* stuff like MRIs and fighter jets and tanks.

It's like so many other situations in life....media makes us feel guilty for being shitty evil consumers who need correcting and neglects to mention the real bad guys, the corporate bastards who refuse to pay taxes, and his buddy the cowardly politician who is afraid to tell the voter the truth to their face. Much easier to beat up on Larry Lunchbox and his family.

Much easier to placate the masses with bread and circuses.

Like Earth Hour. Nice Circus, huh?

12 comments:

  1. I never thought about it like that!
    Much easier to swallow the 'it's all the consumer's fault' line!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "bread and circuses" I like it, exactly discribes who they treat the public.

    I got what you were trying to do, but since I have never and willnever be the "right" kind of white people, most of the stuff on that website doesn't apply to me. Its funny, but in a distant sort of way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alley,

    That's kind of the problem for me, I am just not into some of that stuff because I didn't grow up with it...but I still laugh at it, since I can observe it in lots of other people.

    And honestly, my husband is, I think, the template for the damn site. He didn't get it, because he finds it hits to close to home.

    So I sit and observe him and LMAO.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's what loved ones are REALLY for, isn't it?

    I tend to be the kind of person who makes "those" sort of people very nervous. (And to tell the truth, I like it that way).

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's not you, it's me. No really! All the blogger-based comment pop-up boxes are wonky on my wireless connection lately.

    Now let's see if this actually makes it through...

    ReplyDelete
  6. I thought it was great - I'm a suckass commenter.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm not convinced the consumer can't contribute anything. Voting with your money is rather powerful if enough people do it.
    Of course, if the better choice is not on the market, then there's little you can do.

    And I wholeheartedly agree that the average car on the North-American market is a gas-guzzling disgrace. :-)

    Good to see you're doing well, by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Funny thing Lut, but do you know that several great fuel efficient cars are manufactured and sold in Europe, and they could be here, but Volvo and Toyota won't.

    The Prius has a plug in version that you can buy but we can't. And Volvo makes several diesel versions that can run on biofuels in Europe, but no dice here.

    If only I lived where you do, I might have half a chance at being green. Unfortunately here, it ain't happening!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks, I really needed to hear that it is impossible to get the right car.

    It is unbelievable with gas costs and the need to real environmental change that we cannot fix such a huge problem.

    Lets hope that Earth Hour does not start a cascade failure on the power circuit.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You're a GREAT writer, Aurelia; you have touched my heart so many times it must have your sticky lil' fingerprints ALL OVER IT!
    But seriously, I've just been busy as you well know...

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm not so fond of circuses, but, really, bread is pretty tasty.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh come on, are you really surprised?

    ReplyDelete