Days to remember?

During the last months we had an “Earth day” and a “Water day”. On June 17 we have the “World day to combat desertification”, organized by the UNCCD. As I wrote in my last blog, it is strange that we have to be remembered to do the maintenance of Mother Earth. Mother Earth is our house and nobody would destroy the house where he is living in. However, we do destroy Mother Earth.

This means that a system error is the cause of the destruction of Mother Earth. Where are we going wrong? Simple: if you destroy Mother Earth, you make more money and if you maintain Mother Earth it costs you more money. If you spill industrial water in a river without cleaning it, you make more profit. If you cut a virgin wood without replanting it, you make more profit. If you use insecticides and kill not only the insects but also the birds, you make more money. If you clean the water, or plant a tree, or grow organic, it costs you money.

So the incentives are contrary to the interests of humanity. We should make spilling water more costly than cleaning it. We should tax the tree cutters and pay the planters. We should fine the insecticide users and reward the organic growers. We should etcetera…

Will this ever happen? Not before we have a disaster that costs over, let’s say, 100 million death people. Seeing millions of people suffering and losing their houses, as we recently saw in the Philippines or in the Hurricane States in the USA seems not enough to inspire us to change the system. It looks like we need a disaster of such a scale with unimaginable numbers of victims, that maybe then suddenly mankind will understand that Mother Earth is their house and that we have to maintain it, just as our own houses. That the one who destroys the house must pay and the one who maintains the house, must be paid for it.

Just like we pay the carpenter, bricklayer or painter of our house, we have to pay the water cleaner, the tree planter and organic grower who maintain Mother Earth. Many people nowadays think that an iPhone is important and do not worry about clean water. But you can live three days without an iPhone. You die if you are three days without water. That shows how important the maintenance of Mother Earth really is.

We do not need to celebrate days to remember this. We just need to use our brains in order to start to do what we already know that has to happen. Change the system error!

Pieter Hoff,
Green Musketeer