Sunday, April 20, 2014

Earth Charter

I fully support the message of the earth charter. The message sent out is pragmatic and reasonable, but not overly demanding. It can help us realize the importance of stewardship that comes with our knowledge and power. "Adopt at all levels sustainable development plans and regulations that make environmental conservation and rehabilitation integral to all development initiatives." The irony of this, FGCU signing of on the earth charter, is that FGCU's very existence has caused great damage to the local ecosystem. If it weren't for FGCU being built, the urban sprawl around the area would have never happened. Every time we promote anything regarding environmentalism, we're trying to heal the wounds we ourselves inflicted. Then again, we will never know what sort of world would exist if FGCU was never founded. It would be a world without 100,000+ hours of service learning for local organizations, and without college students requiring to take a course on sustainability. Perhaps FGCU will have a net-carbon-negative affect on the planet. But that's impossible to know...

Where was I?

Ah. Earth Charter. Right.

It's hard for me to say anything about this that I haven't already said in class. I like it. I support it. "Empower every human being with the education and resources to secure a sustainable livelihood, and provide social security and safety nets for those who are unable to support themselves." It not only mentions the importance of environmentalism, but also societal sustainability. This nation does not have a sustainable society. It's been recently reported that the US is not, in fact, a democracy,  but an oligarchy. I recently just learned what that was. It means that a certain few have all of the power. I think that' correct, given the massive control corporations and certain wealthy doners have over US politicians. They find viable ones, pump them full of money, and parade them around like puppets in front of the people who only voted for them because they saw their commercial on tv in between episodes of NCIS: New Brunswick. The corporate puppeteers sit there like parents staring at a baby and say "awe isn't that cute. They think their vote matters. How adorable."

I'm not bitter or cynical....

"Require multinational corporations and international financial organizations to act transparently in the public good, and hold them accountable for the consequences of their activities."

Yeah. Like the Koch brothers would ever let that happen.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u5NTA7TGqI

But the Earth Charter is just words. The only way for these words to truly matter if they are followed by legitimate action. FGCU, if you look past its hypocritical existence, is making great strides to spit out environmentally aware students. What I would love to see is a comparison of the carbon footprint of graduated students from FGCU vs UF, keeping all other factors the same. If such a study came about, and it actually showed that FGCU was spitting out environmentalists. then it would be a grand day for all...

I'm gonna go call Pew...



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