The Instant Revenge
"We might as well celebrate cancer treatment as a growth industry, rather than take cancer epidemics as a warning about the hundreds of toxic chemicals loosed in the environment." -- Paul Hawken in his book The Ecology of Commerce.
Strange enough, a lot of people in my network are getting cancers in their 40s or 50s. Sadly, a fair percentage dies or will die soon. Cancer is so common in China now that it is considered to be a 'long lasting' disease takes time to cure and recover instead of a deadly disease. This morning, in a conversation with Carol Yeo, I learnt this is not a unique syndrome in China. She was reading books about those fighting against cancers in their 20s and 30s.
I have been interested in sustainability issues for 2 years now. Still, I always had the feeling that when we talk about extinction of species, consumption of non-renewable energy, creation of waste faster and more than how much the nature can take, it only affects the future generations. And 'sustainability' on its own always seemed a futuristic and long-term oriented topic.
Now apparently, the revenge from the nature is instant. Besides cancer, there are many things human beings are 'suffering' DIRECTLY much more today compared to 50 years back: e.g. male fertility is decreasing remarkably based on the review of 61 papers and studies covering 150,000 men around the world between 1938 and 1990. (Directly quote from 'The Ecology of Commerce'.)
The facts are so daunting and cruel. Even if we don't care about other people (who are not even born now)'s life, we do feel the pain of losing those close to us. Or we might be those suffering from deadling diseases and causing pains to those love us.
I wonder how long we have been talking about sustainability. In the business of life and death, how much has been achieved?
Strange enough, a lot of people in my network are getting cancers in their 40s or 50s. Sadly, a fair percentage dies or will die soon. Cancer is so common in China now that it is considered to be a 'long lasting' disease takes time to cure and recover instead of a deadly disease. This morning, in a conversation with Carol Yeo, I learnt this is not a unique syndrome in China. She was reading books about those fighting against cancers in their 20s and 30s.
I have been interested in sustainability issues for 2 years now. Still, I always had the feeling that when we talk about extinction of species, consumption of non-renewable energy, creation of waste faster and more than how much the nature can take, it only affects the future generations. And 'sustainability' on its own always seemed a futuristic and long-term oriented topic.
Now apparently, the revenge from the nature is instant. Besides cancer, there are many things human beings are 'suffering' DIRECTLY much more today compared to 50 years back: e.g. male fertility is decreasing remarkably based on the review of 61 papers and studies covering 150,000 men around the world between 1938 and 1990. (Directly quote from 'The Ecology of Commerce'.)
The facts are so daunting and cruel. Even if we don't care about other people (who are not even born now)'s life, we do feel the pain of losing those close to us. Or we might be those suffering from deadling diseases and causing pains to those love us.
I wonder how long we have been talking about sustainability. In the business of life and death, how much has been achieved?
posted by Jingwei @ 5:40 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hey Jingwei, I just read a small article in the local paper about how long it would take before traces of human existence would disappear from earth for ever - 200,000 years. A blink of an eye when you think that dinosaurs existed for 165 million years before we came along.
The Earth will renew itself - everything will grow back to the way it was, the carbon dioxide will clear when we are dead.
I think the article is preparing us for the inevitable. Or perhaps waking us up to the fact that if we don't take care of our planet now, no one outside of this world will care...the earth will not cry for us when we are gone, it will just regenerate and make way for the next inhabitants.
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