Oil in the Rain Forest

If I have time to finish this it will probably cover several topics. Already in my head I have environmentalism, over population, and religion. but anyone of those can easily spin into other topics, especially over population. Seeing as the word rambling is in the name of this site, and I've warned you that it will cover several topics, lets say this could get out of hand. As a final warning, I have a lot going on in my head and this is my way to escape for a little while without moving, some people meditate, I blog.

So here goes. Saw an article in USNews about drilling for oil in the Amazon. So obviously as a half-assed environmentalist I need to say something about the obvious problems with this situation. There is the first order issues of oil spills and clear cutting to make way for the pipelines and the roads to service said pipelines. Imagine the Exxon Valdez in the amazon, its better not to actually. But then there is the issue of having a road deep into the amazon makes it much easier for the exploitation of areas previously protected by sheer remoteness. I'm sure there are many many other environmental problems that I won't get into. Anytime you try to move in on the most important forest in the world your going to cause many problems, some foreseen like I mentioned but also many others I can't even imagine, AKA known unknowns. Ok so environment was easy to cover.

So why don't we just say no, why not avoid ruining the rainforest? Well because we have too many people. And the world has gotten a taste of western indulgence and wants more, its sorta like heroin, or better yet cigarettes. It gives you a little buzz at first and all the cool kids are doing it, you gain popularity for a little while and it can be a great way to break the ice at the bar (or outside the bar) but then you notice that all your clothes stink, theres a gray cloud around you and you have cancer. yeah I think cigarettes are a damn good analogy for western civilization. Ok so its bad enough that the US and Europe are ruining the environment, we have decent populations. But now everyone wants in, especially China, if they start polluting anywhere near the way we do then things are really going to get out of hand. So this is all very directly related to population, we could lead extravagant lives and not care in the least about pollution, if there were a million people on earth. Or you could have a few hundred million people who are very conscious of their pollution and live great lives. But the current scenario of several billion people a few hundred million of whom lead extravagant lives without a care for pollution and the rest who pollute a bit, thats not going to work for long, considering its only been true for about 150 years out of the timespan of human history, thats a very short period of time. So we have to damn many people. I'm not saying we need genocide or anything but a little family planning is a great start.

Finally I get to religion, as I often do. But I'm not going to go where you were expecting, after covering overpopulation then saying religion the obvious jab would be about how many religious groups have tried to ban all sorts of forms of family planning, birth control, abortion, sex education. It has all been stifled by those listening to people who took a vow of celibacy. Why anyone would look to a virgin (or child molester) for advice about family planning is beyond me but we are talking about religion so looking for logic is a waste of time. But no thats not where I'm going, thats the obvious right jab, me I step on toes. No the religious part for me was this single line, "As a general rule, you have to remember the good Lord was a fine man, but he picked some godawful places to put oil." The fact that this guy refers to god as a "fine man" struck a cord with me. I have heard people say before that atheists are arrogant because they hold people up a their gods. This is a very silly argument to me as it seems obvious to me that someone who sees no gods, would not consider themselves to be god. Statements like this would probably be tossed away as simply a figure of speech, and it probably is a fine man rolls off the tongue a lot easier than a fine omnipotent being. But there is more to it than that, this was just an example that made me think of how we made god in our image because it was easier that way. The fact that he uses the phrase god awful is also ironic.

Oh I could keep going but I have things to go do. You know this wasn't nearly as rambling as I expected.
Peace!