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What business does a South Dakota blog have talking about the deaths of thousands in the cyclone in Burma/Myanmar?Ask my wife. She's all about focusing on local community and local issues. But in her latest post on Prairie Roots, she notes that our own consumerism has stomped our ecological footprint on Burma in a way that increased the death toll from the cyclone. We demand tourism and cheap shrimp; Asian developers clear out coastal mangrove forests; cyclones and tsunamis are able to do that much more damage.
It sounds Rube Goldberg, but that's how the world
works: you buy cheap shrimp, more people die in a cyclone. Enjoy your lunch.So is my wife just another raving tree-hugger trying to destroy America? Come on, you folks know better than that:
Do I say all this to make us feel guilty? No, not really. Mostly it’s to expose more of us to information that I hope will inspire us, mature us to consider how our ways of life affect others. As a Christian who takes her theology seriously, that’s tremendously important to me. One of the questions I’m called by God to ask on a daily basis is, “How does this affect my neighbor?” [Erin Heidelberger, "Others Are What We Eat," Prairie Roots, 2008.05.08].
That's my wife, always thinking about her theology and choosing information over ignorance. (She's another one of those intellectuals... another reason there's a ring on my finger.)
But Erin's not just griping. She tells us what we, the United States, the wealthiest and most influential nation in the world, can and should do. Erin says we can "share more of our wealth with thoe who needlessly suffer," a radical notion that she offers not from Marx but from those other well-known radicals, the ELCA. Erin also points us toward an organization that helps restore mangrove forests.
Read the whole post here... preferably over lunch, so you can think about what you're eating and where it came from.
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And just a conversation starter for you foreign policy hawks: with the Burma junta seizing U.N. aid and refusing to let the U.S. send more than one cargo plane to help the cyclone victims, is it time for a humanitarian invasion (and is that term an oxymoron)?
Sorry, I don't buy it that the US caused the destruction in Burma. I'm so tired of people blaming our country for everything.
ReplyDeleteThere was a story on the news today about which countries were supplying money to the world food program (can't remember the official name of the organization). The US was top of the list, not surprisingly, buy a huge amount. All the top countries were western nations. OPEC ranked about 44th or so, Saudi Arabia gave 0, and these are the countries raking in the money from oil right now. The UN ranked close to the top, and of course the US is the primary supporter of the UN. It's time that people realize we aren't the bad guys.
So...you're saying that because America throws money at the problem, they should be absolved of guilt or responsibility?
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone is saying America is the "sole" bad guy here...but I am willing to bet you are an American. So what is the point of Mrs. Madville Times (who should come out of the shadows and be called Mrs. Prairie Roots) who is an American, who feels possibly convicted about the actions of herself and fellow Americans and is trying to convince her fellow Americans they should possibly feel convicted too?
I think the point is clear. Everyone has heard the saying "You have to admit you have a problem before you can solve it."
I doubt that America is the sole cause of any problem in the world, but I am humble enough to recognize that as Americans, we have our fingers in a lot of pots, and we share the responsibility when bad things happen. And sometimes, throwing money at a problem won't make it go away.
I have to agree with Mr. Nelson on one thing. We shouldn't be throwing ouR money around. At lest the worst place to throw it is to the U.N. (Let's get the U.N. out of the U.S. and see how long it stands.)
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way have you heard that the rice we (the U.S.)are sending to the Phillipines to help feed their people, is being taken by the Phillipine government and being sold to its citizens? Don't you just love a good capitalist government!
Anon 9:37, I'm sorry you feel like I'm being overly negative, but I assure you that wasn't my intention. If you haven't done so already, I hope you'll read my full post about this. You'll see that I didn't blame the U.S. for all the destruction in Burma. But, yes, I did say that we are responsible for some of it. And frankly, it's not something any of us can argue with. It's really not a matter of "buying it" or not. I didn't make up the information I wrote about. Facts are facts, and hard as they are to accept sometimes, they're still reality. Once we have the information, we can choose to ignore it, or we can admit that some of actions have ramifications that others have to live with, and we can decide to do something about that.
ReplyDeleteI'm also not arguing with the fact that we send plenty of aid to countries around the world, and that's a truly wonderful thing. We should keep doing it; in fact, we should send more. But that doesn't change the fact that our consumer demand for shrimp and tourist destinations is what is driving the removal of mangrove forests, which in turn results, among other things, in greater devastation from storms like the one that hit Burma:
"The leading consumers of shrimp (or "prawns") are the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
The fate of remaining mangrove forests may now rest in the hands of these consumers from wealthy nations which import these luxury shrimp products. Since a highly profitable and expanding market is the driving force behind the shrimp industry, a worldwide reduction in consumer demand for farmed shrimp is called for"(source here).
Given this information, I've decided that my sense of entitlement to eating shrimp is a whole lot less important than indigneous coastal people's well-being, so I'll exert what consumer power I have and no longer eat shrimp. If enough of us do that, we can be a force for change.