urban ku # 66 ~ beauty/melancholy
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 08:20AM 
Spring color on a perfect spring evening • click to embiggenI had to make a grocery run last evening before a late dinner. Instead of taking the BasketMaster (because a zillion pound bag of dog food won't fit on the BM), I decided to take a car and venture well outside of the village to see what there was to be seen. After all, it was a 'picture-perfect' spring evening.
As I was clicking about, here and there, some NPR (Nat'l Public Radio) program or another was airing on the car radio. I was intent on watching, not listening so I wasn't really paying attention .. until I heard this - 'We haven't seen a blue sky in 20 years.'
Now I was listening.
Turns out that it was a Chinese woman speaking (through an interpreter) about the effects of Chinese industrialization on her village. Her story was simple - a little over 20 years ago, quite a number of coal-burning factories sprung up in and around her village. Now, the air is acrid and black. Everything is covered with a fine black ash. Respiratory deseases are commonplace and death rates per 100,000 have skyrocketed.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who hasn't been living deep down an unregulated free market hole in the ground - China is about to pass the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases but I think we still hold the honors in the carbon dioxide emitter race. Be sure to raise your arms in 'victory' and hold your heads high, fellow Americans.
China surpassed Canada in the first two months of this year as the largest exporter to the United States. In an interesting counterpoint of sorts, an official from the aforementioned woman's village noted that the U.S. has, for all intents and purposes, exported its industrial pollution to China. Still want lots of stuff but none of the mess that comes from making it (or the expense of cleaning it up)? Send the jobs offshore and let somebody else live with it.
But of course, the earth 'lives with it' no matter where the stuff is made.
In any event, as I was picturing last evening, all of the above was on my mind (more so than it usually is). It made it quite difficult to enjoy the moment knowing that people are suffering and dying because 'market forces' are demanding more and more stuff.
Follow that up with a piece in this AM's newspaper about the demand for ever-bigger homes (dispite shrinking household family size) in the U.S. - and I quote, 'Our kids have more stuff. They need more living space.' said Valerie Astle. And this - ...the growth in big houses is fueled by suburban home buyers seeking luxury, rather than big families needing space. And, American homes, on average, are nearly twice as large as in many European countries ...
In case you're wondering why I can't just take 'pretty landscape pictures' and be done with it, there it is. Every time I point my camera at the natural world around me, I know that what I am picturing is literally fighting for its life from the ever-increasing onslaught of human 'desire'.
Call it 'market forces', 'climate change', 'the economy', or whatever. Pick a rationalization of your own choosing, but I can't look at it any way but this - Death by desire - people killing the planet and each other over the 'right' to have more stuff.
PS - enjoy the pictures and, oh yeh ... have a nice day.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comments: the wife wrote; "A hundred years ago, Freud wrote in Civilization and it Discontents (I think this was the book where he explored this idea) that the two main drives for humans were to attain eros and thanatos - love and death. It didn't make much sense to me in college, but it seems to play out in real life..."
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comments: Paul Maxim wrote; "... While we've disagreed on what constitutes relevant artistic (or personal) expression, we are in complete agreement on this topic ... I must admit that I'm very pessimistic when it comes to the "problems" you describe. I don't see the world in general recognizing the inevitable consequences any time soon or even before it becomes too late to do much about it. People - especially Americans - will always believe that someone "in charge" will fix things before it actually does become too late. After all, we do still enjoy blue skies here, don't we? Not to worry - the government will do what's right and take care of us ... And if that doesn't scare the beejesus out of anyone with half a brain, I don't know what will......"
My response - Paul, it's comforting to know that we can cross artistic party lines and agree on something really important. But, regarding your 'beejesus scare', and since we are both fellow New Yorkers, keep an eye on the just created NYS Office of Climate Change, which is tasked with 3 primary missions: cleaning up energy-generating plants and reducing transportation and home/business energy consumption.
The department is headed by Jared Snyder, former assistant attorney general in environmental protection. He stated (yesterday at the Adirondack Research Consortium conference in Tupper lake) that, "... climate change is something that should keep us all awake at night ... we need to take aggressive action and in New York it starts with the governor."
I don't know what political side of the aisle you are on, but I will state that, with Eliot Spitzer at the helm, things will get very 'interesting'. And I welcome the fact that some states are taking matters into their own hands and dealing with issues that the current administration in Washington won't.
PS - and don't forget Bill Clinton.
Reader Comments (3)
Very nice post. Real darn depressing, but that pretty much describes the world, too.
A hundred years ago, Freud wrote in Civilization and it Discontents (I think this was the book where he explored this idea) that the two main drives for humans were to attain eros and thanatos - love and death. It didn't make much sense to me in college, but it seems to play out in real life..
Thanks for the post, Mark. While we've disagreed on what constitutes relevant artistic (or personal) expression, we are in complete agreement on this topic. As the politicians around the globe - I can't just pick on the US "brand" of politician here - argue about Irag, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc., the world is slowly but surely dying of greed fueled by overpopulation. The world economy is driven, as you say, by desire and the need for power. In effect, the "hot wars" I've alluded to above are simply a subset of sorts of this larger problem.
I must admit that I'm very pessimistic when it comes to the "problems" you describe. I don't see the world in general recognizing the inevitable consequences any time soon or even before it becomes too late to do much about it. People - especially Americans - will always believe that someone "in charge" will fix things before it actually does become too late. After all, we do still enjoy blue skies here, don't we? Not to worry - the government will do what's right and take care of us.
And if that doesn't scare the beejesus out of anyone with half a brain, I don't know what will......