Continuing on the grievous matter of dumping of dangerous lead into the atmosphere, that has killed and maimed millions
of people across the world in the last many decades thanks to the ingenious greed of three of Americas largest corporations
General Motors, Du Pont and Standard Oil, I have since gathered that Texas
based Standard Oil has morphed into ExxonMobil (like Union Carbide
morphs into Dow Chemicals). Interestingly the blatant corporate greed of Standard
Oil began much earlier, in the scheme of things Lead was only an added
incentive in their gargantuan appetite for money. The
History of the Standard Oil Company is a book written by journalist Ida
Tarbell in 1904 was an expose’ of the wily ways of this corporate, subsequently
the SC of US found the company in serious violations of rules. All these under
a fellow who went by the name Rockefeller, he amassed amazing amount of money,
and I gather is still a record for people who keep records on these matters. It
is baffling. To be fair with our man he did contribute a lot for charity (and that
is so unlike Indians, who are self-assured of vaginal superhighway past life regressional
benefits and entitlements. Converting these crudeness and arrogance into an art
form of humbleness and peace is their major occupation; consolidating camaraderie
meanwhile is valued as compassion! Thankfully due to limited intelligence and preoccupations with crass the degradation is limited to Indian subcontinent, not without
intent). Whatever maybe his latter part contribution it is clear that Rockefeller
was a dubious fellow, and as any successful profit sucking specie he shared
same characteristic of a psychopath. It need be reiterated though that his
contribution towards philanthropy is significant, and really cannot be brushed
aside. However the whole ideology of furiously sucking in as corporate greed, meanwhile
causing immense damage to surrounding and then regurgitating as philanthropy is
rather trite, and seems like balancing for religious brownie points.
In 1989, the Exxon owned oil
tanker struck Bligh Reef in Alaska and spilled more than
11 million US gallons of crude oil. It is considered to be one of
the most devastating human caused environmental disasters. In the aftermath of
the Exxon Valdez incident, the U.S. Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of
1990. So you can see Standard Oil aka
Exxon had a role that galvanised society against them to pass stringent laws to
protect environment first through Clean Air Act of 1971 and later through Oil
Pollution Act of 1990. These meant to protect precious environment, human
beings, other life forms and ecosystems from wayward ways of greedy corporates and
instill in some sense of responsibility. It seems these greedy corporates haven’t
really learned anything much.
I was reading online Rolling
Stone magazine the other day, Exxon
CEO Rex Tillerson told Wall Street analysts that the company plans to spend
$37 billion a year through 2016 (about $100 million a day) searching for yet
more oil and gas. Meanwhile to put it context Germany has taken bold steps to
shift to renewable source of energy. This blogger thinks that tourists from Germany
should be given discounts while Australians and Americans should be carbon
taxed. The writer continues “There's not a more reckless man on the
planet than Tillerson. Late last
month, on the same day the Colorado fires reached their height, he told a New
York audience that global warming is real, but dismissed it as an
"engineering problem" that has "engineering solutions."
Such as? "Changes to weather patterns that move crop-production areas
around – we'll adapt to that." This in a week when Kentucky farmers were
reporting that corn kernels were "aborting" in record heat,
threatening a spike in global food prices. "The fear factor that people
want to throw out there to say, 'We just have to stop this,' I do not
accept," Tillerson said. Of course not – if he did accept it, he'd have to
keep his reserves in the ground. Which would cost him money. It's not an engineering
problem, in other words – it's a greed problem”
The problem here is that these
moneybags influence policy makers and hence jeopardise
the long term interests. The present crisis is the result of exaggerated concerns
of moneybags, and the outcomes of diktats of these greedy coteries who orchestrate
thoughts and values through jargons of economics, intellectual plausibilities
of wanton greediness, seeping pliable mechanism as market media, manipulated democratic institutions
and ethical dexterity adds to make it an enthralling mix. The sham show really
cannot go on for ever, there is a limit to which a system can take. All the pretensions
will surely be exposed as the truth marches in. Nature doesn’t lie. Even the fig
leaf of religion, that some are waving, cannot deny these except as fatalists,
hence crudely irresponsible. Already carbon level is touching 400ppm…
I was reading a riveting article in
Orion
Magazine (by Charles Mann) “... As
a relatively young species, we have an adolescent propensity to make a mess: we
pollute the air we breathe and the water we drink, and appear stalled in an age
of carbon dumping and nuclear experimentation that is putting countless species
at risk including our own. But we are making undeniable progress nonetheless.
No European in 1800 could have imagined that in 2000 Europe would have no legal
slavery, women would be able to vote, and gay people would be able to marry. No
one could have guessed a continent that had been tearing itself apart for
centuries would be free of armed conflict, even amid terrible economic times”
“Preventing Homo sapiens from destroying itself would require a still
greater transformation—behavioural plasticity of the highest order—because we
would be pushing against biological nature itself. The Japanese have an
expression, hara hachi bu, which
means, roughly speaking, “belly 80 percent full.” Hara hachi bu is shorthand for an ancient injunction to
stop eating before feeling full. Nutritionally, the command makes a great deal
of sense. When people eat, their stomachs produce peptides that signal fullness
to the nervous system. Unfortunately, the mechanism is so slow that eaters
frequently perceive satiety only after they have consumed too much—hence the
all-too-common condition of feeling bloated or sick from overeating.
Japan—actually, the Japanese island of Okinawa—is the only place on earth where
large numbers of people are known to restrict their own calorie intake
systematically and routinely. Some researchers claim that hara hachi bu is responsible for Okinawans’ long life
spans. But I think of it as a metaphor for stopping before the second
inflection point, voluntarily forswearing short-term consumption to obtain a
long-term benefit.
Evolutionarily speaking, a species-wide adoption of hara hachi bu would
be unprecedented. But is it so unlikely that our species would be able to do
exactly that before we round that fateful curve of the second inflection point
and nature does it for us?”
“Our record of success is not that long. In any case, past successes
are no guarantee of the future. But it is terrible to suppose that we could get
so many other things right and get this one wrong. To have the imagination to see our potential end, but not have the
imagination to avoid it. To send humankind to the moon but fail to pay
attention to the earth. To have the potential but to be unable to use it—to be,
in the end, no different from the protozoa in the petri dish. For all our
speed and voraciousness, our changeable sparkle and flash, we would be, at last
count, not an especially interesting species”
Agreed, after all the big talks
and what not we are not much different from the self-assured protozoa in the
petri dish of corporate greed…
