Fault and Blame

Insurmountable difficulties facing humankind force us to view ourselves as wasters of opportunity, heedless destroyers of the very environment upon which we depend for the air we breathe, the food we eat, the shelter we seek.

Those who have the good fortune to live in economically stable societies with stable political and social conditions have long been privileged to partake of all that technology has provided us with, enhancing our lives beyond the meagre measures meted out for emerging economies and underprivileged geographies.

There has always existed want and privation in the world, and nowhere has the brittle presence of death been more present than in those countries of the world that are the most populous and least capable of providing for their populations.

Those countries mired in political instability, ruled by oppressive tyrants having little interest in providing for their people. And it is also in those countries where natural disasters seem more prone to result in further population dislocation and hopeless migration.

Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, all disrupting the normally miserable lives of so many of the earth's inhabitants, making life ever more hopelessly tenuous and impossible. But now humankind is faced with the prospect of an environmental devastation that is all-encompassing in its broad implications, with climate change altering normal weather patterns beyond comprehension.

And the bony finger of blame is pointing straight at those countries whose profligate wastage of resources is most obvious. With emerging economies charging the developed nations with the blame of advancing climate change, and demanding that sacrifices be made by those same nations on behalf of all humankind to forestall the accelerating rate of environmental collapse.

So when the guilt-ridden West desperately seeks ways and means to produce fewer Greenhouse Gases by spewing out less carbon dioxide, we mess that up, too. Diverting food crops to biofuel production and in the process and allied with crop failures worldwide due to massive drought and/or flood situations, creating another world-wide emergency, that of critical food shortages.

That's what occurs when a supposedly bright idea is embraced, one that deliberately shunts aside the need for food production to feed a hungry (and growing) planet's population, to solving a critical energy shortage and at the same time seeking to ameliorate the damage wrought to the environment by dirty fuels.

We just can't win for losing.