I have purposely chosen to not discuss topics that are politically volatile on my blog, but last night I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep after a dream that made me realize how concerned I am about a lot of things that are going on around me and how I feel so powerless to do anything about most of it.
The dream I had last night was about just one of the many trends I see occurring around me that has disturbed me. I think the dream was a result of several different things that culminated in me realizing that it is something that concerns me so much that I want to voice my concern, even if it just to the very few who read my blog.
A few days ago, I took the kids to the pool. On the way there, I saw yet another mountain that had been leveled and scarred. I don't know whether it had been mined or if it was simply to make yet another housing development, commerce center, or business park. But every time I see a wooded expanse of land be razed to nothing more than a heap of dirt, it makes me sad. Another thing that makes me sad is when I drive past buildings that have been virtually abandoned and have became neglected and dilapidated, because real estate became more desirable somewhere else. So the former occupants moved on to "bigger and better" things. Now I am not knocking the need to update, revise, move, etc., but it is sad that so many houses and buildings are left to scar the landscape and new land is filled with houses and buildings that will one day also become yesterday's news. I often wonder to myself as a new housing development or strip mall is erected, if we all wouldn't be better served to make better use of what is already available or if their shouldn't be some sort of law enacted that would require those who vacate a building and it becomes basically unusable to tear the building down and to reuse the land for some other purpose.
From being part of Compassion, I was well aware of that country's plight long before the earthquake struck that lead to the international spotlight being turned to this island that was already at the point of desperation, long before the earthquake destroyed their capital city. One of the reasons that Haiti has been in such dire straights for so long is because deforestation has reeked havoc on the land. Haiti was once a tropical island, but because of deforestation, most of the country is now just dry, hard, and dusty plains. When rains come, it just causes floods and mud slides and families work to just make enough food grow to feed their own families and they can't even do that adequately. It is crazy to think that the people of Haiti would not have seen the importance of trees and other foliage to their long-term survival, but sometimes the day-to-day need for income and survival outweigh long-term thinking. I read an article recently that said even after the Haitian people knew they needed the trees and foliage for their land to be healthy, they still cut trees down for firewood to cook food or to sell to buy their basic necessities because they didn't know how else to survive. Of course, many other factors have contributed to Haiti's situation - government corruption is another major factor - but deforestation has played a major role.
Then I read this article about mountain top mining. It is actually a blog about attacks made by the "Friends of Coal" on Ashley Judd for her outspoken opposition to mountain top mining. In the blog there is this statement: "A recent rash of critical newspaper commentaries and letters-to-the-editor in her home state (Kentucky) have blasted Ashley for criticizing this extreme strip mining -- by those who argue that mountaintop removal is beneficial to local economies for the jobs provided by the mining industry and the flat land it leaves for economic development". It has a sad echo to the thoughts that the Haitians probably had when they first started to allow their beautiful country to be dozed over for profit. Now I do not claim to have any expertise about mountain-top mining or even coal mining in general, and I definitely do not understand all the politics that surround decisions made by the coal mine industry or the states that allow mountain-top mining. But I feel like we as Americans have definitely gotten into the habit of looking at short-term gratification versus long-term benefits in almost everything we do - from sending almost all manufacturing to countries like China to even how we treat our relationships with each other and with God.
Okay, now that I got that off my chest, I will resume my usual politically correct blogging.
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