Emissions: Author's note
First off, I must offer my apologies for my gross lack of literary skills. I am no George Orwell, and satirical pieces are not exactly my forte. However, this issue of Bush and the Kyoto Pact has upset me greatly, to say in the least, and the fact that this was in conjunction with the announcement that the budget for NASA's space program had been cut made my reaction all the more adverse. So strong was my reaction to the decision that I felt a compelling need to put my thoughts and feelings down in print. So I decided to incorporate my favorite activity (fanfic writing) into it and thus was born this piece.
Now, I'm not trying to specifically implicate the US or the Bush administration for the carbon dioxide emission problem. This is a problem which concerns the whole world, especially with regard to the more industrialized ones where the degree of CO2 pollution is the highest. However, the difference between the US and the other gas-belching industrialized nations is that the others are willing to put in sacrifices to reduce the emissions, while the US has declined to do so. This is not to say that the American public does not recognize the severity of the problem and its urgency. In a recent Time/CNN poll, over seventy percent of the respondents considered the problem of global warming as "very serious" or "fairly serious", and nearly the same number (67 percent) agree that the President should develop a plan to cut down emissions of these greenhouse gases. The problem is that they were not nearly as enthusiastic when asked if they were willing to make various pecuniary sacrifices to achieve that: less than half were unwilling to pay extra for fuel, or support tough government actions which might result in larger utility bills, mild inflation or a rise in unemployment rates. It is this lack of support, I believe, which pushed the newly elected President (who, by the way, won by a painfully, I repeat, very painfully tight margin- but we couldn't forget that, could we?) to back out of a promise he might not be able to deliver on.
Many of you will probably think that it's easy for me to talk of all these problems with impunity. But I do understand the discomfiture caused by taking stricter measures in reducing pollution. I live in a small crowded country on the brink of overpopulation with no natural resources whatsoever. Our carbon dioxide emission rate is unspeakable. The government has so far taken numerous steps to cut down on all the associated problems, none of which have made us very happy. My home utility bill is horrendous- it can hit a hundred dollars even though we live in a small five-room flat, turn the TV on about once a month and we hardly ever use the computer (the one with the most usage is me, and I don't go on the Net at home- I merely write my fanfic). And the price of electricity still keeps going up! Another unhappy consequence of this is the so-called Certificate of Entitlement, which one must purchase with any vehicle. Depending on the make and capacity of one's car, this innocently named COE can cost anywhere in the vicinity of $10,000 to $50,000, jacking the price of a 1.8 litre Japanese sedan car up to over $100,000. (Yes, that's a hundred thousand dollars. For a small Japanese car.) This was implemented to reduce the number of cars on the roads. Plus all the various road tax and road pricing schemes, car ownership down here certainly comes with a large price tag.
So yes, I do empathize with what the Americans fear when they think of tough economic policies the government might implement. And for a mayor faced with an energy crisis, it is easy to see how environmental concerns would be at the bottom of his priority list, taking a backseat to just trying to keep afloat. But, IMHO, that is too homocentric a viewpoint to take. What I think is that we're missing out on the big picture here. We should be aware that we are occupying the same planet as billions upon billions of other living creatures. To me, causing suffering for these innocents just for our own sake is intrinsically wrong. We may have clawed and evolved our way up to the top of the food chain, but who are we to determine what's good and bad for our planet? The human race, for all its merits, is simply not mature nor experienced enough to predict the consequences of our actions on the Earth's ecology as a whole. Damage has already been done to our ecosphere- too much damage, in my opinion. Something needs to be done to stop this before the situation worsens. Ignoring the environmental consequences of our society's effluents in lieu of solving an energy crisis is not going to help in either situation. Consuming more energy to alleviate an energy crisis is simply going to result in a worsened condition when the world finds out that it has sucked the last droplet of oil out of the land. Would we then return to coal and fire as our fuel sources? I think not. What humanity needs is progress, not to sidestep our problems and create bigger ones for us in the process.
I'm not saying that our situation is hopeless. We have the ability to work out alternative means of obtaining energy from our surroundings in a cleaner, more non-intrusive manner; we're just not trying hard enough. There are too many things on our minds- political tensions, diseases, economic slowdowns… but when will these difficulties ever end? Hardships have plagued humanity since time immemorial. Rather than let them accrue, we should attempt to nip the problem in the bud. Or as early as possible. We need to see the forest for the trees, in a manner of speaking. Sometimes it is hard to see all these points objectively, but it is easier to think of humanity as a small cog in the great machine that is the universe. By trying to turn the wrong way, we slow the whole machine down, even destroy it. We are small, yet we are important. Somehow.
I guess that's part of the reason why I like Star Trek the way I do. Its science-fiction premise allows us to explore, however metaphorically, our relationship with the world around us. It gives us that sense of wonder we hardly ever get to experience otherwise in our dreary earth-bound lives. Thinking about Trek sometimes gives me this epiphany about our place in the universe. I mean, here we are, and we're all made out of the same carbon and hydrogen and oxygen atoms as say, a sun burning seventy-thousand light years away on the other side of the universe. And looking at the sheer diversity of life on Earth alone makes one wonder at the marvels the interactions between the same set of a hundred or less naturally found elements could bring about. Trek makes me realize that a) Nature is a lot more strange and wonderful than we can imagine, and b) we too as humans are wonderful and have such potential to do great things, both the good and the terrible. Now, if both Nature and mankind could work in harmony, what more gems could ensue from the unions of these two marvels?
If you're bored by all these environmental philosophy mumbo-jumbo, I forgive you. After all, most of us come here to be entertained by the romps of our favorite starship crew on their rounds, not the ramblings of a 17-year-old with delusions of sophistication and maturity. All I wanted to do was to get people to think, an activity many of us, so caught up in the day-to-day rush, rarely participate in anymore. (I myself am guilty of this.) If you totally hated this and can't imagine why anyone would ever think this way, that's fine by me; everyone is entitled to his own opinion (why else call us individuals?) But if you've read something that you've liked here, please do review my story, or let me know what you think about this whole pollution thing! I hope I'm not alone in this school of thought!
Thank you for suffering me long enough to read all the way to this point! ":)
Lt Taya 17 Janeway, who actually wrote the story weeks ago but had been deliberating forever on whether she should put it up. (To post, or not to post…)
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