We live in a world, which we’ve destroyed. We rely heavily on petrochemicals, oils derived from the dead bodies of assorted ancient animals and assorted mineral deposits. We use this oil both as fuel, where we burn it and release toxins into the air, or to manufacture polymers and plastics that end up in landfills and the middle of our oceans, where they kill the wildlife.
As the most intelligent of creatures with opposable thumbs on the planet, we’ve succeeded in making a right mess of the world that we can never properly heal. This is, for the most part, a direct result of the technological revolution started at the end of the 19th century and continuing today.
We bottle water in plastic bottles for consumption in areas without potable water. Except we market this bottled water and sell it in many cities where the tap water is not only safe, but also a source of pride for said cities. This is in fact an insult.
We use plastic bags for the convenience and only charge for them as a cash grab, that is, to acquire extra profits from what has already been an operating cost built into the price already. The greedy companies usually only will claim environmental reasons if there is extra profit to be made.
One example of this was the failure of the electric car in favor of petroleum-fueled cars at the dawn of the 20th century. The correct, environmentally safe batteries were not developed. Instead, the undercutting and cutthroat methodologies of the corporate world of the day obliterated any chance the electric car had, even though there was less of a problem when it came to designing electric locomotives.
Little has changed in the corporate world since that time, as the nouveau-riche and the bourgeoisie continue to lord it over us peons, owning everything and destroying our world, hurting our children and removing our resources.
In the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, we sealed out the earth from beneath our feet. We’ve built huge concrete cities and long iron railroads, replaced many of them with black-tar highways as transportation of people and cargo became smaller and more individualized, lowering in quality except when a distraction is needed and becoming flimsier.
After all, if the machine doesn’t break, who needs to fix it and why sell spare parts? Those of us not born into great wealth must enslave ourselves in order to eke out a meager living. In today’s economy, it is cheaper to make the products in far away countries using slave labor, so jobs here are much scarcer and a living is harder to acquire. We are using up finite resources at a greatly accelerated rate, and even renewable resources are being eliminated through a combination of impatience and profit mongering.
Then, there’s war. War is big business. Never mind about casualties and injuries, injuries bring in greater profits for the doctors and medical supply companies. Casualties mean profits for the undertakers. On a similar note, new diseases are always being invented and implemented on the population for the sake of the pharmaceutical companies profits.
Keep the population unhappy with what they have so they will always buy more, ad infinitum. Keep the population in pain and make a killing selling painkillers. That’s the unfortunate reality we live in.
