There are four articles in Google News today, Thursday, 12th
July 2012, that spell out very clearly the terrible present state of things
environmental. These reports have come together only because of the daily news
cycle. They highlight the raw and careless cynicism in our world that seeks
only profit, and is prepared to ignore all necessary responsibility for
outcomes, while seeking to gain from the promotion of the ideals of
sustainability, and the care and concern for our world’s future.
One has to do with the false advertising of a duck producer:
CONSUMER authorities are suing Australia's largest duck
producer after activists filmed its ''open range'' ducks crowded into dirty
pens, some of them covered in faeces with their wing-stubs caught in metal
grates.
One has to do with the fate of a
baby panda in Tokyo:zoo:
The death of a baby panda in
Japan stopped regular television programming and brought a Tokyo zoo director
to tears yesterday, a week after its birth sent ripples of excitement across
the nation.
Newscasts had dedicated a
nightly segment to the male cub's daily activities since his birth on July 5,
with retailers unveiling a host of panda-themed products in celebration.
The next has to do with the
super trawler seeking registration in Australia to allow it to fish in our
territory:
It will be flagged to Australia
to be eligible to fish for a quota of about 18,000 tonnes of mackerel and
redbait, to be block frozen whole on board and exported, Parlevliet's joint
venture partner Seafish Tasmania said.
The 142-metre trawling giant has
a 200-metre long net with an opening measuring 75 by 35 metres. It has a
freezing capacity of 200 tonnes a day.
Australian fishers have long
sought to exploit the country's so-called "small pelagics", which are
prey for bigger fish such as tuna and marlin.
The last article seems to sum it
up. It has to do with the bulldozing of thousands of rare turtle eggs:
KINGSTON: Thousands of
leatherback turtle eggs and hatchlings have been crushed by heavy machinery on
a beach in Trinidad.
Conservationists said the beach
was widely regarded as the world's most dense nesting area for the biggest
species of living sea turtles, which is endangered.
Government work crews with
bulldozers were redirecting the Grand Riviere, a shifting river that was
threatening a hotel.
The hotel was full of tourists
who had come to Trinidad to see the tiny leatherback hatchlings head for the
surf. Instead, they saw injured hatchlings dying.
The duck producer seemed happy to promote his barn-raised
ducks as:
duck meat as ''Grown Nature's Way'' and indicating that
their ducks ''were allowed to spend at least a substantial amount of their time
with access to an outdoor body of water … foraging for food outdoors'', and
were of better quality than barn-raised ducks when ''that was not the case''.
While talking about the excitement and news interest in the
first baby panda to be conceived naturally, the text continues on breathlessly
to report on the ‘panda-themed products’ that were on sale as part of the
celebration. The panda had immediately become a marketable item. The text
suggests that there is some sadness at the loss of this market opportunity,
leaving one with mixed messages on the meaning of the birth for the world.
The super trawler leaves one gob smacked at the statistics.
Why would anyone believe that the extraction of such quantities of fish could
ever be sustainable? Why would a country allow such a devastation of its
fisheries? Our prime minister has already leapt into the fray:
The venture has been backed by the Prime Minister, Julia
Gillard, who said the Australian Fisheries Management Authority would decide on
a permit based on the sustainability of the catch.
The real worry is that lists and boxes are just too easily crossed off and
ticked when words can be used as shields to justify anything. One should recall that this is the same prime minister, a
trained lawyer, who declared Julian Assange guilty even though he had broken no
Australian law.
The fate of the turtles seems to say it all. The bulldozers
were redirecting a river that was threatening the hotel that was erected for
the tourists to come to see this rare and endangered species hatch. The most
important matter was the hotel and the tourists, not the turtles, endangered
and rare or not. As Oscar Wilde pointed out: ‘all men kill the thing they
love.’ But does this have to be done so blatantly by blind greed and rapacious
thoughtlessness?
The message is clear: we will end up with nothing but the
ruins of hotels and bands of tourists wandering around looking for the next
‘fix’ if we do not act now to ensure a coherence and integrity in our attitude
to this world and the other lives that share it with us.
Responding thoughtlessly to the declarations of sergeant-major-like screams,
and the pomp of the little man, does not give good outcomes, no matter how the
actor might pretend to believe in the gravity of the pronouncements. Queensland
needs to be vigilant. Springbrook is too special to be allowed to be managed
carelessly, just as the sergeant-majors are:
Sergeant-major
The articles can be read in full at:
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