21/09/2009
Summer is over and we are now looking forward to Christmas
Summer is over and we are now looking forward to Christmas and hopefully the continuation of an economic recovery in 2010. There is a significant percentage of the population of the West which has seen a significant downturn in its standards of living but life continues and generally speaking for most of us it is still a fairly good life.
To some extent, the economic crisis has occurred at a time when we were becoming more and more conscious of the risks that exist to the planet and the damage that has been done to the natural world especially during the twentieth century.
The phrase ‘charity begins at home’ is often used and could be dangerously prophetic if we are not very careful. Whilst our standards of living may seem to be falling and cost of living rising, it could be very tempting to forget that in the ‘developed world’ we still enjoy luxuries that can only be dreamed of in the ‘third world’.
There is no doubt that we do rely on the labour and resources of the less wealthy parts of the world in order to assist our standards of living and economies generally. In a time of recession, it is easy to forget the situation of those living and working thousands of miles away in order to keep our imports as cheap as possible, but isn’t this just a short term placebo which will undoubtedly harm us all in the long term?
We can’t afford to ignore those principles of sustainable development and recycling if we want to ensure the future prosperity of ourselves and generations to come. I suggest our target should be to continue to act as if our resources are not unlimited, conserve what we can, recycle what we can and work to improve the conditions of those we purchase from so that when the world economy does improve, we are all able to benefit from the upturn, but continue to embrace ideals which protect us all.
I started by mentioning Christmas and would simply suggest that when planning for our celebrations and the gifts that we all plan to buy that we remember to source sensibly, as the best present we can give to our loved ones and the future is a healthy and regenerating planet.
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