The Lie Of Economic Development

by Janus Thu Jun 18, 2009 01:49

Consumer Society

So whats all this talk about consumer society?
What does it mean?
Put simply - or truthfully - it means a society which is living a kind of lifestyle which can only be lived if
that society consumes.
Hence, consumer society.
But what does a consumer society consume?
Well, Stuff, any kind of Stuff really.
That is, any kind of Stuff which might make life "easier" for that society.
The following is a list of a few of the things which could be considered to be that Stuff;
ENERGY, COAL, OIL, GAS, WOOD, WATER, FOOD, and there are many more.
So, you see, in order to be a "consumer" society, all that society needs to do, is to consume lots of
different Stuff.
So... what about it?
Well, firstly notice that top of the list is energy.
Energy is usually the most consumed item in any consumer society.
The other Stuff; coal, oil, wood etc. is "needed" to produce and supply energy.
And... what about it?
Well, most of the other Stuff has become very scarce and it's becoming very hard to find more.
In fact it is starting to require as much energy just to find it as it will produce!
We all know what happens when a much-sought-after item becomes scarce?
Yeah, thats right, the price goes up!
Right now, the cost of finding and supplying more Stuff to consume has spiralled out of control.
Very few people in the world can afford much of this Stuff.
In fact, if the truth be known, most people in the world could never afford it in the first place.
So, in order to be able to afford this stuff which will give us an easier life we all have to work harder
than ever before.
Something sound odd about this?
The obvious answer is to try to ensure a constant and affordable, supply of this "Stuff".
Affordable ?
People with lots of money usually feel pretty smug at this point.
But read on.
Can I ask you a question.....
"When did this Stuff actually walk up and promise you that it could give you an easier life?"
Never?
You mean the actual Stuff never promised you anything?
Then, who did promise you this easier life?
Some guys in books or adds ,on TV, in the newspaper, in the general media?
Wasn't it very generous of them to help make our lives easier for us?
Oh, they're selling the stuff.
I see, we gotta pay for this easier life.
So we gotta have jobs so that we can pay for the easier life.
I'm ok with that. Well, better get a job then eh?
So, I wonder who might give me a job?
The oil company? The coal company? The nuclear company? The fertilizer company?
The gas company? The electric company? The drug company?
But, wait a minute, aren't these the same guys that I pay for the Stuff to get my easier life?
So if I want the easier life, I work for them to get money which I gotta give straight back to them!
Nah, I ain't gonna work for them as well as pay them.
But what else can I do? Well, its the oil company so.
And is it working, Have we an easier life?
We have to work harder so that we can afford the easier life?
More pressure. More stress. More anxiety.
More worry and so on, so that we can have an easier life?
When'd you last look around?
People look so tired all the time.
How long were you in that last traffic jam?
When'd you last manage to get a seat on a train?
When'd you last manage to get a train?
Where you goin' on that train anyway, to work?
How long did you spend with your family this week?
Well, it sure has changed our lives.
We all bought into this bigtime, didn't we?
Ah well, such is life - the easy life I mean.
I suppose its all for the best that we keep buying this stuff, I mean, what else can we do?
Lets try to figure out what else we might do.
First we'll take a look at some of the things that are supposed to be giving us this easier life.
Let's get some facts about the Stuff we're consuming now.
FACT one;
It's common knowledge these days that while we were consuming all this Stuff, it was doing its own consuming!
What do I mean?
Firstly, because we have consumed almost all of the Stuff, and because its become so expensive, we've been forced to look at what alternative Stuff might be available for to us to consume. And, lo and behold, this looking has opened our eyes to some things we did not expect to find.
You see, some of the alternatives seem to present increased dangers to us if we try to consume them.
Nuclear power for instance, and, when we began to study what sort of dangers they might create, we noticed
that there were already lots of problems with the Stuff we have already been consuming.
In fact, the people who did the looking, were shocked at what they found.
But their research was mostly financed by the guys selling the Stuff, so they were not allowed to tell us about
the dangers they discovered. Until... some of them became very concerned and started to "leak" some of their findings.
What exactly did they find?
Thats just it,
They have found so many problems, they are finding it hard to catalogue and evaluate all of them.
There are so many problems that the scientists have picked just a few of them to study. And when they began to study one problem they realised that all of the problems were linked to lots of the things we are consuming.
There just ain't the time nor the money to study all of the dangers.
Remember also that the research was mostly financed by the people selling the Stuff and, now that their produce is running, out they won't really want us to know too much about any dangers posed by their old products and certainly they won't want us to know about any posed by any new products they will want to sell us. (See note 3)
Ok lets look at some of this Stuff and see if we can find out whats been going on.
Lets look at one we've been consuming for a long time.
COAL
Wow! Coal sure has been around for a long time. Millions of years, in fact.
Before we started consuming it, coal just sat there, eh, just being coal I guess.
But it did contain a great deal of energy and energy is what we consume most of all.
It got this energy from the sun, through plants etc. (you can check this out if you want to).
Although its true that we have been using small amounts of it for a few hundred years, it is only in the last hundred or so years that it has been burned for almost every household, in almost every one of our towns and cities.
Now, thats a lot of coal! Think about it.
How many bags of coal did a typical family home burn every year, for all those years?
For example, a city the size of Dublin alone burned more than TWENTY MILLION TONS
of coal in those hundred years. Have you ever seen twenty million tons of coal in a heap?
Well, I haven't, but I bet it makes a really, big pile!
By-the-way, Dublin is a very small city (in fact, relatively speaking, its hardly a city at all).
OK, say we look at fifty cities the size of Dublin, and there you have it, fifty times twenty
million tons of coal! 20,000,000 times 50 = 1,000,000,000.
That's a THOUSAND MILLION TONS OF COAL, burned in the last hundred years, by fifty very small
cities. Now, lets say that there are fity more cities which are five times the size of Dublin.
So thats twenty million tons multiplied by five. (five times as big as Dublin)
Works out at ONE HUNDRED MILLION TONS per city. 100,000,000
Multiply this by fifty cities and we get FIVE THOUSAND MILLION TONS , 5,000,000,000.
And if we include some even larger cities....... NO, lets not do that! I'm sure you get the picture.
I chalenge you to take a day out of your easier, life and try to count to one million.
Lets do it now....1,2,3,4,5, .......
Oops, gotta go now, my easier, life don't allow me that much time off.
So, what did I mean when I said that this Stuff was doing its own consuming?
Well, if you burn FIVE THOUSAND MILLION TONS of coal, you're going to get certain results.
Some of these results are useful, like warmth, electricity generation, locomotion and others.
But these are only some of the results of burning all this coal.
There are other results which are not so useful, in fact, they are downright dangerous and
this is what the scientists/researchers found. Smoke from burning coal, carries a long list of extremely
toxic pollutants, for example;
Acrolein, Carbon monoxide, Chlorine, Arsenic, Hydrocarbons, Nitrogen oxide,
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), Sulfur oxides and many others.
Also, heavy metals (very destructive to life forms) from the smoke include the following;
Lead, Mercury, Nickel, Chromium, Cadmium, Arsenic, Aluminum and others.
A recent study by The University of Texas School of Public Health found that children living within two
miles of the Houston Ship Channel had a fifty percent increased risk of leukemia when compared with
children living more than ten miles from the channel (Houston Chronicle, January 18, 2007).
Some of these toxins, for instance, are known to cause cancers. Mercury and lead are known neurotoxins.
Studies show exposure to these toxins can result in lower IQ scores and also behavioral disorders.
These pollutants may also cause immune system disorders.
Some of them cause hormone disruption and developmental delays.
Sudden infant death syndrome also has been definitely linked to toxins from the smoke stacks of
coal-burning power plants. Wow! They really did find some problems. Didn't they?
And let's not forget that the ash from all this burning of coal must be got rid of. It seemed a good idea to dump it into whats called landfill sites (out of sight, out of mind).
So, having sat in the earth for millions of years, the coal is lifted out, burned and dumped back in again.
But, of course, its not coal anymore. Can't it just sit there being ash?
I'm afraid not! In fact it moves, slowly I grant you, but not so slowly that we can outrun it! How does it move? Well, it moves in many ways, but mainly by hitching a ride with water. Water is one of the most abundant elements of this planet. Water, of course, is one of the most important substances for keeping humans, animals and plants alive and healthy. In fact it is an essential requirement for life. But for life to flourish the water MUST to be CLEAN . Water which is tainted will not allow lifeforms to remain healthy for very long. All this ash sitting in the ground just happens to be stuffed with much the same toxic substances as the smoke is. Remember these guys? Acrolein, arsenic, carbon monoxide, chlorine, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides and so on.
But isn't it OK for the water to give this ash a lift as far as the sea?
Can't it - the water - just pick it up and continue on its merry way to the sea, where it can drop the toxins off and then evaporate into the athmosphere as nice clean water again? Remember the Smoke? Well the the smoke is waiting for the evaporated water and it contaminates it to the extent that when the water forms into clouds and rain ensues the rain can and has, killed thousands of trees and other plants and animals around the world, polluted rivers, lakes and of course, resevours.
What does coal consume?
Here are just some of the things it consumes....
AIR, LAKES, FISH, OCEANS, PLANTS, LUNGS, EYES, BRAIN CELLS, ETC.
So, it seems that this particular consumable was actually consuming an awful lot.
IN FACT, ALMOST EVERYTHING WE NEED TO HAVE AN EASIER LIFE.

AND THEN, MOST IMPORTANTLY, THERE IS THE GUILT!
Can we sustain a healthy life if we know that this easier life comes to us at the cost of the lives of children.
Millions of children.
Children just the same as our own.
No less loving.
No less in need of loving.
And they ARE dying today!
They are dying alone and forgotten.
But, for the easier life, we are willing to watch them starve.
We are willing to watch them die.
Have you ever actually watched a child starving to death ?

NOW is the time of their death.

I won't even start on OIL!

The following passage might well be an appropriate epitaph for
the works we have so far done on this planet of ours.

"Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale!
Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words, but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill."
Shakespeare

What can we do?
Think, learn, question, speak out and refuse to be a part of it.
I would ask only one thing of you....
Please, do all you can, in your power, to stop the deaths.

Janus

by Pete. Fri Jun 19, 2009 07:32

Not to worry guys.

The Americans are about to launch a "Solar Grand Plan" which will wean the USA off dependence on Coal and Oil by the end of this century.

40,000 square miles of empty deserts in the American South West will be transformed into Solar Collectors.
(Ireland,North & South is just 32,000 square miles.)

It will be even vaster in scope than the Apollo Moon Program..and indeed will use technology derived from the Space Program.

Read all about it:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-sola...age=1

Quote:
"Solar energy’s potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year. The U.S. is lucky to be endowed with a vast resource; at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants, and that land receives more than 4,500 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of solar radiation a year. Converting only 2.5 percent of that radiation into electricity would match the nation’s total energy consumption in 2006."

Looks like we will be stuck with the much derided "Consumer Society" well into the future !!

.

by Janus Sun Jul 05, 2009 02:51

Another promise.
Another lie.
Another enslavement.
Another death.

Yes, we sure are stuck.