tomorrow

Yet another wonderful deed aimed to save the environment.
Refer to the Economist's special report on a German town called Sieben linden, where people put consumption and waste a top issue on their collective conscience.

Economist Article

It's all very good. I always fail to explain myself clearly enough on issues of philanthropy and environmental issues, probably because I'm not entirely sure of it myself. Or worst still, the people who are actively involved, failed to convince me as I'm not quite sure if they know what they are doing.

On the Sieben Linden eco-town issue. For the people who live in the town, it's nice and comfortable, and doing something like this feeds their conscience well. But for the rest of humanity, it's almost pointless. Repeat, other than an interesting intellectual exercise, it's almost pointless.

Germany is one of the most developed industrial countries in the world, and they get here by creating and exporting wonderful machines, those powerful engines who create the main pollutants of the world. I'm not using the same sentimental judgement on the environmentalists, but the fact is, without the abundance of wealth and technology accumulated over the decades, this place called Sieben Linden would never have come into existence.

It doesn't matter how Utopian a life the eco villagers live, they are living under the social wellfare system of Germany, and they are educated by the wonderful German education system. Hence they created this town by choice, not by necessity; which is another way of saying they get what they want and not what they need. African villages do the same kind of things, but out of necessity, they are too poor to do otherwise; they are not as inspiring as an eco message because, well, they are not Germans who choose to abandon their BMWs, but in terms of sustainability and innovation it's much much more respectable.

One may think that it's ok to pursue what they want if the subject is something good for the planet; tell that to the banks and investment funds and insurance companies who invented the great mathematical tool to combine toxic assets and create AAA bundles, just a couple years ago they must have been thinking they are doing the humanity a favour by utilizing economic resources that would otherwise have been lying around doing nothing.

The truth is, reality is simple, having been pretty much the same for millions of years; humanity is simple, too, having commited pretty much the same mistakes for thousands of years. But when the later tries to intervene with the former with their limited wisdom and means, complicated and unforeseeable results will come about. Think recycling bins in some cities where the gabbage ended up in exactly the same piles as the rest; think solar panels and wind technologies that inspired forward thinking capitalists to invest heavily on, only to coincide with this God forsaken depression, with oil price a third of what it was last year; think the healthy way of diets, inspired restaurants like Wagamama, with its tasteless low fat and high fibre menu, closing down like mad when people, after another day of gloomy market results, attracted by the heavenly smells of pure fat from China Town.

Think George Bush, wanting to grab control of some oil, ended up burning dollars in trunks of trillions.