I can only blame myself for giving in and reading about Occupy Wall Street. It got my gears turning. The reason I don't like politics, is because it's all a lot of hype, and somehow, someone's always taking it personally. I usually prefer to stay out of it altogether because our system will never be perfect. I think of politics as walking a steady pace up an escalator out of a subway; you're never gonna beat it.
I read part of an article where a protestor was quoted saying that fuel companies can't just use the sky for their carbon emissions.
Pardon my lack of any sort of segway, but here's the problem I find with "green": it too has become, and will further, an industry. Someone will always profit off of green things. I often wonder, do these people think about how much it would affect their lives to completely remove coal as a source of power? Yes, wind power is a wonderful idea, but you know how much a residential wind-harvesting turbine costs? And not just the prices you find for one on ebay. Who's going to pay for that? If there was no coal-burning power plant, the costs of alternative energy - which we all know is more expensive - falls on the little guy. You can't say the government should pay for it, because our debt is already so high. How to balance? Tax more. Hmm...again, the cost is imposed on the people.
(Don't even get me started on celebrities siding with "the little guy", this whole thing could be solved if Oprah put her money where her patriotic mouth is and donated her dog's inheritance to the US government)
And yet, here there are thousands of people complaining - ahem, protesting about how unfair current financial situations are.
I can practically guarantee if any new restrictions or regulations were put in place regarding home electricity standards and usage, it would become an industry. It will begin to cost more and more, increasing the load on already tired backs. Sure, it's nice in theory, but what's the reality?
The reality is, the guy who invented the electric car, was too lazy to bike and wanted to be a millionaire. He (or she) is sitting on a nice pile of money that grows more and more each time someone "invests" in a Prius. And even then, they're only gasoline-electric.
Political and socioeconomic systems are just that...a system. There is so much 'fight the system' mentality that I don't think people realize we're only on track to burn out. Mass incoherent protests aren't really going to do anything except make chatter. If that's what they want, fine. But I hope they're not fooling themselves into thinking they're changing anything. They're only heating up the dialogue, if you will. Stirring the pot; making noise. They are only making noise.
And for the rest of us, (though in part I may or may not agree with some of the sentiments, and yes I recycle) we go on with life. We get in our cheap high-emission car and go to our entry-level job at that giant corporation because it pays our electric bill and puts the macaroni and cheese on the table, leaving a tiny fraction to go in what will someday be an itty-bitty college fund for one of our four kids.
The reality is, it will never be perfect. And so some of us, go on living, doing our best to do what we can.
