TOXIC ALBERTA

http://www.vbs.tv/shows/index.php?show=Toxic%20Alberta

I watched a cool documentary on the Alberta sand tar/oil production, pretty amazing interviews all around. Basically its a boom town for men who are willing to work hard, and perhaps individually they can "return to civilization" with enough savings to get ahead for their period there, assuming they avoid the trappings of loneliness and despair - i.e. vices, drugs, prostitution, gambling, and perhaps risks of being a victim of crime as well.

I worry about the tropical rain forests, how there seems to be no hope to believe that the forests will remain in 50-100 years at all. The boreal forests perhaps are a little safer with the harsh cold and barrenness, but with the sand tars up there, and the "thirst" for oil on the world economy, it's "just business" until some bottleneck knocks it down, whether water, or natural gas, or whatever.

Mostly its just sad to me, even beyond the tragedy of the natural world, the wasted years and lives of people trying to get ahead, make something for themselves.

I'm sometimes willing to look at the bigger picture, endure hardship, take the harder road now, knowing something better is in the future elsewhere.

For me, I mostly reject "big change", like moving to somewhere crazy, just for work, and it is crazy, to imagine going to a place where the only reason people live there is to make a lot of money, with no believe it is a place to care about.

And of course the land-grabbers in the Brazillian rainforests, burning sections illegally for one year of crops and moving on, and every step justifying the destruction because they have to provide for their family.

I don't have a solution, and I don't feel superior for living in a big metro area, being supported by so much I can't see. I don't know what's going to happen, but even if the optimists are right, that we'll made do when we need to and find something new when we're forced, without scaling back our demands on the world, I can't believe it. I can't believe you can continue to commit violence against your environment, justifying for short term prosperity. It all must come back to haunt us.