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Should US environmental standards apply when multinational companies develop the petroleum resources of fragile ecosystems such as Peru's Amazon?
In order to fully understand the above question I think it is necessary to break it down into really simple terms. We need to ask ourselves what it is going to take for us to move from our sofas and comfortable existence into mobilizing and taking a stand against the immoral and corrupt multinationals desecrating our planet. If we can avert our gaze and shift our attention that is and stop being stupefied by the latest edition of Big Brother and X Factor.
Will it take the kind of situation that the indigenous peoples of Canada are facing? The high levels of pollution which is making its way into the sea and consequently fish and seals have created a gender imbalance. In one village no male children have been born for some time.
Will we need to see hundreds nay thousands of children being born with defects to move us out of our homes? Will it take another protracted war not for oil but this time for water? Will it not be too late at that stage?
I often heard my teachers asking time and again of students "would you treat your home like that" unfortunately if we even have to ask the question posed it means that we are clearly still juveniles in our attitude to our planet. If we don't apply the same standard to another's home in this case Peru then why are we even there? Have we learnt nothing from our history?
This debate will seem to our children as ludicrous as the debate that raged regarding our African brothers and sisters and whether or not they were actually human! Or the debate that raged regarding women being entitled to dispose of their own property and being eligible to vote! If we do not treat the Peruvian rainforest with the respect it deserves and treat it as we would want our own lands to be treated are we not simply befouling our own doorstep? Are we not missing the point that the entire planet is our home?
The fact that there is a need for the above question to be set as a point for discussion is shameful indeed. Surely the highest possible standards should be set when developing any resources if we have to develop these resources at all. The question regarding whether or not we need to develop these resources is perhaps best discussed in another forum. There are many ways we can generate energy the only thing missing is the will to implement change.
Neither our governments nor the multinationals want us to mobilize. Without some great sea of change in our habits of insatiable consumption and shaking off of the chains of lethargy that tie us to our television screens then the poor and powerless will continue to be exploited and the earth looted and plundered to become nothing more than the cesspit of our excesses for our children.
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Should US environmental standards apply when multinational companies develop the petroleum resources of fragile ecosystems such as Peru's Amazon?
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