Debate Closed

I got into a bit of debate in the comments of this article in The Scotsman. The article was about environmental fears surrounding the worlds largest container ship The MS Emma Maersk.

My foil went by the unassuming screen name "ForConsciousness, In The Real World." He was his? first comment:

Don't you just love the arrogance of ignorance of the over-consumers? It's not about the efficiency of a particular ship, or a particular MP3 player, or even the latest Hummer you probably own... It's about total, overall consumption on the planet.

It's been estimated by people way smarter than both you or I that if everyone on this planet suddenly demanded to live at the standard of living you no doubt enjoy on a daily basis, we would need the entire resources of somewhere between 6 and 10 MORE planet Earths to keep us all alive. On that scale of environmental resource depletion, caused by MP3 players, electronic dinosaurs and cocktail shakers, an energy-efficient ship doesnt' mean shi*!

Hurrah, to you, too! In 30 years, when the petroleum resources are gone, and your daughter is a starving, formerly-wealthy, financial analyst, and mine knows how to grow her own food and fix a bio-diesel engine, we'll see who's calling whom a "dummy".

Well I couldn't let something like that go unanswered. Well I could have, but I didn't want to. I, using my actual real name, commented:

I revel in the arrogance of the over consumers. I work very hard to be able consume what I want when I want. And I do so not not only without guilt but with pride.

And in 30 years while your daughter tries to subsist on what she can grow and struggles to keep the old bio-diesel clunking along, my children will enjoy the benefits of the new technologies and energy sources developed to keep the world moving if and when it runs out of oil.

I didn't expect the consciousness of the world to let that go, and I was right.

To Stephen (and all the other arrogant over-consumers)...

The "technology" you hope will save you, will need to be "paid for" by one or two of those additional Earths I noted, unless you continue stealing ("borrowing"?) resources at such a rapid rate from those of lesser means on this planet to pay for that "technology". That is until the resources run so low they decide to rise up and teach your office-chair-bound hides a thing or two about equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

Trust me, the vaquero working his cattle in South America 14 hours a day (so you can have a cheap Big Mac), and the hand-digging miner in Africa, working in conditions that will kill him before he is 40, (so you can have cheap electronics), think they are "working very hard", too. But because of our Western world's "borrowing" of their resources without just compensation, they don't get to "consume what they want, when they want". At some point, though, it will no longer be about money, but be about food, or water, or medicine, for that cowboy or miner's children. Then you will have a real fight on your slovenly, wasteful, hands.

How self-centered and impudent can you (and those like you) be?! No wonder the world despises Americans like they do...

I just love it when people try to insult me. Especially when they try to do it by using things I consider a value as a smear. It makes me smile. It makes me laugh. It makes me reply:

And without the demand of us self-centered, impudent and hated consumers, where would the market be for the beef and raw materials?

The western world does not borrow resources. It pays for them. and where would the rest of the world be without that trade.

And if an when the time comes that I have a fight on my slovenly hands, then I will fight to defend the life that I have made. And I will probably be better armed.

The thread sat idle for several days with no sign of consciousness. Alas comments have now been closed. Perhaps one day soon the consciousness of the real world will Google the MS Emma Maersk, find this post, and the debate can continue.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 01:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment