Green: same old lies
M Alan Roberts

The civilizations of the planet are finally wising up. Country by country, governments are admitting the necessity of and taking steps to incorporate alternative energy sources into manufacturing scenarios. All of the sudden, everyone is going green. The leading presidential candidates are promising to pump $150 billion into research and development of green alternatives for our lifestyle needs and wants.

Now, while I think that it is a fantastic thing, it is also long overdue. The real reason why the government has finally come over to the green side is because they are simply no longer able to disguise their lies. The evidence grows more overwhelming everyday that the planet is in grave peril. If the proof was still able to be concealed - it would be. They would still be sitting back, milking non-green lobbyists for billions and billions, living their fat lives and not giving a damn about the environment.

I remember "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" and the stories of Jacques Cousteau. I remember seeing clips on the news about how some tiny little Greenpeace boat would pull in the path of oncoming whaler boats or oil tankers. I was in Valdez, Alaska a couple of years after the Exxon Valdez dumped the crude into Prince William Sound. I heard the stories of the local fishing fleets. I was back in Alaska in 2005 and the stories were still unresolved. The government to this day continues to deny them fair settlements. A lot of those fishermen have actually died off - just according to plan, I am sure.

There have always been environmental heroes. They are the people that you have known who take the small amount of time necessary to separate plastics, newspapers and the like from their trash. They have backyard compost piles and maybe even a vermicompost bin under their kitchen sinks when they live in the cities. They consider their impact on the environment to be vitally important for the survival of us all. They have cared enough all along to embrace the need for planetary biodiversity and have consistently made small, yet meaningful changes in their lifestyles.These are the people who deserve recognition now, not the governments and huge corporate manufacturing firms. They are just saving face from having to fess up to the devastation that they have caused. Just because they seem to making some effort now, it doesn't mean anything for those who suffer from life-threatening diseases caused by their past lacking concern. The women and men who developed cancerous tumors from contact or ingestion of river waters may think that something more were needed decades ago.

When the government admits that they have done "x" amount of something wrong, that means that they have actually done far worse. They will always strive, and lie outright, to minimize their responsibility. When they say that they are giving something back that simply means that they have found a sneakier way to take even more away.

While I am happy to see an intercontinental shift to embrace the green philosophy; I advise all of us to keep one eye or both on the governments of the planet at all times. Governments are supposed to represent the necessities and desires of the people that they are elected by. They never have because that is just another of the fronts that they use to disarm us and steal from us. We all have the individual responsibility to protect and preserve our planet. We can do that best by taking advantage of this new day of conservation-based thought. We can best protect our environment by keeping the pressure on our governments.