Environmental Degradation And The Rich

 The Gulf of Mexico in some parts is little more than a contaminated sewer. The overall health of the Gulf is declining. Even though it is incredibly rich in biodiversity, a source of trillions of dollars in tourism, fishing and real estate, it will continue to be trashed. The day will come that the parts of the Gulf that are still healthy and desirable places to visit and live near will become like the places in Mississippi and Louisiana where real estate is dirt cheap and no one is allowed to enter the contaminated waters. 

People are careful to keep their properties perfectly manicured, with no regard to the harm to the Gulf from the fertilizer runoffs, pesticides and other chemicals required to maintain perfectly useless lawns. It becomes clear that individuals care about what is theirs, and could care less about that which they do not own. No one owns the Gulf, so trashing it is just fine. 

Many rich live in a delusional world of entitlement. They have the money, so nothing must be denied to them. All of the environmental problems the world faces matter only as long as it does not restrain their extravagance and need to serve themselves. There is not a world big enough to support what many of the rich take; their luxury, their excess, and still expect that the collapse of biodiversity, climate change, plastic contamination, deforestation, environmental degradation and more can be averted. This is not a call for violence in any form whatsoever. It is a call for change in values and priorities.

There is news that a newly recognized species of whale, numbering less than 100 living in the Gulf of Mexico, is critically endangered and near extinction. One underweight whale that had washed ashore had plastic in its gut. This is not a safe world for wildlife. It is not safe world for billions of people. The rich, the ones with the power and money to make it a better place, often instead cannot see beyond their own needs, their own entitlement, their own elitist agendas. They are the entitled ones that everyone serves, and that often see the servitude as proof of their superiority. Everything is more than fine in their universe, so why change anything? 

The worship of money, extravagance and luxury is not a sustainable path.