Happy Blog Action Day!
This year's topic is the environment. I'm not going to try and relate this to IB by poking fun at how much paper our teachers use or anything like that. All I can really say about this issue is:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME, PEOPLE?
Why is the environment even an "issue" we're raising awareness for? It should not be, and I will tell you why.
IT SHOULD MATTER TO YOU ALREADY.
It's a travesty that they had to choose this as the topic for BAD. There are plenty of issues out there that do need attention from the public, but this should not be one.
Guess what?
YOU LIVE ON EARTH.
You drink water, you need medicine, you breathe air, you live in a house. There is no possible way you can twist this issue to be selfish and not care about it. But I want to drive an SUV! Would you like to be able to breathe in a year?
Here are a list of semi-understandable (not justified, per se, but that make sense) reasons not to be a huge activist for many causes:
You are not an orphan in Africa.
You are not a political prisoner.
You are not a member of a religion persecuted by your government.
You do not have cancer or AIDS.
You are not serving in Iraq.
You are not gay.
You are not mentally ill.
You are not a drug addict.
You are not a chicken, pig, or cow that somebody plans to eat.
Etc.
It's altruistic to be an activist for a cause that does not "directly" involve you. Now, I believe that as children of one God and members of the human race, we have a responsibility to take care of each other, and that every single one of us should be doing as much as they can to help every cause I listed and more. But I'm not here to be idealistic or judgmental. I'm here to say that if you don't care about the environment, you're an idiot in denial. It's not even selfish to not recycle or to litter or do other things that hurt the environment. True, it's selfish to buy Starbucks with money that could have gone to an African school, but in our humanity and our culture, nobody's saying it's wrong. What I cannot fathom, absolutely cannot fathom, is people not caring about the Earth.
There's activism in what's seen as the WWJD-hippy-love-protest-altruistic sense - and there's activism in the SAVE YOUR OWN BUTT sense. Don't shy away from being an environmentalist just because other forms of activism seem like too much effort. Running away from a fire is a good idea, even if most people who run all the time do a lot of training work. It's not that hard, really, and it's going to help you a lot more in the long run.
I'm not going to hit you with warnings or statistics. We all know the Earth is in trouble. Step up and do something.
People need to stop being pseudo-selfish idiots, and then maybe next year we can get to a cause that should be the source of an awareness day, like, oh, I don't know, advocacy for the mentally ill, or helping the lost and discouraged, or Ugandan children.
DO SOMETHING:
7 comments:
word.
"Here are a list of semi-understandable (not justified, per se, but that make sense) reasons not to be a huge activist for many causes:
You are not an orphan in Africa.
You are not a political prisoner.
You are not a member of a religion persecuted by your government.
You do not have cancer or AIDS.
You are not serving in Iraq.
You are not gay.
You are not mentally ill.
You are not a drug addict.
You are not a chicken, pig, or cow that somebody plans to eat."
How do you know i'm not a gay African orphan with cancer, aids, and mental illnesses, who is addicted to drugs because of an oppressive government who made me a political prisoner because I want to serve in Iraq but I can't because i taste particulatly delicious?
You're pretty discriminating against my kind. love ya too?
Roi: love you.
Lua:
1.) you're hilarious and I adore you as well
2.) wait how am I discriminating? confuzzled.
i'm a psychopath who plans to kill the world through CO poisoning. i'm gonna go around to all the gas stoves, light those babies, and BLOW THEM OUT! Muahahahahahaha.
bahaha.
and then the babies will go into 6-12 minutes of brain activity, which is also eternity because it's brain activity, and it will be heaven because it's brain activity, after death of course.
i meant babies as in the gas stoves, dummy!
but i did forget to put my name.
I usually dont take time to ever make comments on a web site but I have to say I would truly be doing you a grave disservice if I didnt write something. This post has most definitely opened my eyes. Thank you so much for writing it.
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