To: letters@guardian.co.uk |
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Dear Sir/Madam, I read George
Monbiot's article, "A
weapon with wings" in
Tuesday's Guardian, and
chanced to hear him during the
day on BBC 2 radio. His view I
find a valid one, as well as
being in interesting and
welcome contrast to more
conventional views. But he
misses, or certainly fails to
emphasis, the essential
and most dangerous aspect of
air travel: its fundamental
non-sustainability on a
planet with limited natural
resources and carrying
capacity, which will soon be
populated by 7-9 billion
people, the vast majority of
whom, once they can afford it,
want to fly; just as they want
to own and drive their own
motor cars. Our planet, Spaceship
Earth, cannot support
either form of modern
transportation on the scale
that human inclination and
"economic necessity"
are inexorably taking us
toward. We are flying and
driving ourselves towards
extinction (or something
horribly close to it), yet are unwilling
or unable to face up to the
fact. Why? Because (for understandable behavioural and historical reasons) our economy is based and dependent on our compulsive, more animal than human nature. If we could but see it, we are quite literally addicted to and dependent on the materialism, commercialism and consumerism which are causing us to plunder and spoil our planet, and which will lead to our demise if we do not make some radical and rapid changes to our way of life. Just as substance addiction will eventually destroy an individual, so society's addiction to a growth-dependent economy and insatiable consumerism is certain to destroy our civilisation. With hindsight, we shake our heads at the blindness and stupidity which led to the horrors of the 20th Century (Homo sapiens, indeed!), yet we have learned so little that now we ourselves are boldly striding towards even bigger calamities, perhaps even The Final Calamity, specicide and extinction. By missing, or
failing to emphasis, the
essential point of non-sustainability,
Mr Monbiot is simply adding to the
confusion and making it even
more difficult for people to
face up to the dire situation
we are in. |