Being in Africa and feeling somewhat empowered to have an opinion, I've decided to take it upon myself to make another political and maybe inflamatory statement. (My first being the anti-war blog.) Really, I love making such statements because not enough people do. I was reading the Independent of London, a great UK news source, and an article captured my attention. The article is titled "Climate Change Could Ruin Drive to Eridicate Poverty". The URL is as follows: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article321757.ece

In short, the article states: any financial aid effort made to eridicate poverty in Africa will be nullified by the increasing demands made on nations to care for the struggling environment. Meaning that a poor environment will cause more money to be spent on healthcare and environmental cleanup. This got me thinking. It seems that governments, especially the United States', will not take the necessary drastic steps to slow pollution. While token baby steps are made to pacifiy liberals, mostly for show I believe, drastic measures must be taken to stop the growing problem of the earth being covered in pavement, live animals only living in zoos, genetic disfigurement because of the plethora of chemicals we consume, etc. If governments will not lead, the people must lead and the leaders will follow.

There are some governments that lead, however. In northern European, if one does not bring their own grocery bags to the grocery store, a tax of 15% is added for using plastic or paper sacks. This is a powerful move dictated by government, but this will never happen in the U.S. even though plastic bags are the single bigest pollutant worldwide. So what do we do... bring your own bags to the grocery store!

Another interesting fact. Government issued milage standards for cars. Did you know that even though the government places minimum milage standards for SUVs and trucks, the car manufacturers can skirt these restrictions because the government measures milage standards per fleet. This means that an SUV can get 5 miles to the gallon as long as the company makes a car that gets 40 miles to the gallon to even out the fleets' numbers. Pretty slick, if you ask me. So what can we do? Don't purchase cars that get less that 30 miles per gallon! If the cars aren't selling, then companies won't make them - there won't be any incentive to produce them.

If nations' GDPs are eaten up by health care costs and environmental cleanup costs that come as a result of a dirty planet, then what money will be left over to aid the nations that need help? Some may say "Why should we help them?" Well, the history of colonialism is a powerful reason... Also, come visit Egypt. Look around at the pollution and how you can't see the Nile somedays because the smog is so thick. Do you think that just affects Egyptians? What do you think?