03 Dec 2011 6:51 PM:
People have been living beyond their means through the overuse of natural resources and financial credit as world experts have been telling us for years. Leading enviromentalist Jonathan Porritt talks about the World economy facing the 'perfect storm' but he and others see this as a unique opportunity for politicians to simultaneously tackle both the economic and environmental crisis the world faces - "The shock to the system from the near collapse of our global banking industry has been traumatic - and its going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Even so, that is nothing compared to the near-imminent collapse of the ecological systems on which we depend - particularly a stable climate."
Sadly I think Jonathon's words like the words of warning of other ecologists and economists are falling on the deaf ears of those who do understand the implications of unchecked human greed and the those who are less informed or who have little understanding of the actual gravity of these matters.
We are all in this together, whether you count your home in Spain, Dubai, United Kingdom, Australia or anywhere else in the world. I have lived in Murcia,Spain for the past five years, Germany and Holland for nearly ten years and the United Kingdom for more years than I care to remember and yes there are many endearing reasons that one could quote in the favour of Spain and all of the other countries quoted above but each will have its faults with the threads of greed interwoven into many those faults.
Faults such the corrupt practices that have taken place and continue to be discovered in the political and judicial system in a country where regional differences cannot be overcome to produce a unified Spain. What chance, a unified Europe - I don't think so. Environmentally, well, where does one start? Using my locality as an example, there is the rape of the land in Spain through the intensive farming, overuse of legal and illegal pesticides, criminal treatment of livestock (particularly pigs) and nitrate pollution of the water table (two of the main causes being pesticides and the illegal disposal of animal effluance on land including, some of which is used for the spraying of food crops - the food we eat!) and of course there has and no doubt still is the corrupt practices that have been outed over the recent years.
With three of my children having lived and worked in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Sharjah for the past nine years, two of whom are currently there and one of whom is now married to a Palestian and the other who is working as the only western female in the Emiratisation programme, I have had a reasonably good insight into life in the Emirates and believe me, all is not well there. It is a land with an attrocious human rights record, where grown (not arab or western) men up to the age of sixty are often still referred to as 'boy' (e.g. office boy, house boy), barbaric punishments are meted out to those who innocent or guilty, fall foul of the law and individuals are slotted into jobs based on their nationality which sadly seems to define their overall social status while in the Emirates. Sure, there are many advantages attached to living in the Emirates, big salaries, big cars fuelled by cheap fuel, cheap labour to do the domestic chores around your villa or apartment in the form of maids and house boys and much, much, more.
The United Kingdom, the irony being that it generally is not that united, is suffering heavily under the burdon of the benefit culture which is in a nutshell, 'the welfare of many supported by the work of few' or so it would seem. Overwhelmed by legal and illegal immigrants, European workers who become entitled to benefits they have never subscribed to the minute they set foot this side of the channel, the countries budgets have little left to address what is sadly a sign of the times, where increasing numbers of young people are leaving school illiterate, alcoholic/drug dependent and whose knowledge is limited to what benefits they are entitled to and how they go about accessing them. Then we have had and still have the expenses scandal, the bonus scandals and more scandals than I care to think about but more worrying is the disappearing family values that were once the strong core of society itself.
The above are just some examples and there is so much more to concern each of us but the question is - Where do we go from here? Are we in the perfect storm?
Thread:
I'm worried for Spain
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