Farwell (my love) - What will they think of us?

I read on a newspaper that a Japanese Zeppelin will fly over Finland next week. That reminded me of this movie about Graf Zeppelins flight around the world, which I saw last year. The movie somehow affected me strongly, and made me think of how different the world once was. However, that was only barely being a lifetime ago. All these people with their troubles, hopes and dreams, just like any person today. However, so much has changed since that time our values, technology, culture, society and politics. This semi-documentary is, therefore, one of my favorites, because it manages to capture and re-create the world of 1929.   

    
I keep asking whether or not someone, a hundreds of years from now, will look at a semi-documentary about our world. Just like this one. What will they think about our time, our world?

Where have those attitudes gone?

We cannot go on like this with this self-denial. Ordinary working people are not given enough respect and credit for the sacrifices they are making for our society. This cannot simply go on. These are people that should be given the pride and dignity they deserve. On a few occasions, I have heard people looking down on these tough people. Regrettably, that is just sad and vain. Honest tax paying working people are everyday heroes. If there is one thing I could bring back from the past it would certainly be respect.

 

China's quiet genocide

Air Pollution Linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China

Tonight my friend told me, that some figures of the death-toll due to pollution in China have been released. He told me that the death toll in China were 1.2 million in 2010 alone. Looking at pictures of the thick and toxic smog over Beijing and Shanghai during the last few weeks – and the information my friend shared with me. This led to a somewhat disturbing and terrible thought. To get some perspective Nazi-Germany’s Holocaust killed in genocide around 8-12 million people. They died in completely inhumane conditions, at concentration camps – where they worked until they grew too weak and perished or were executed.

Why is this 'gas chamber' ''okay''

While this is not? What is the difference?

Dear people, you need to wake up! How can we allow this to happen? How can we allow an oligarchy in China (or elsewhere) to push for economic growth at any price? The breaches of basic human rights and the destruction of our habitat are happening out of our, Westerners, sights. However, this does not irradicate the problem or our responsibility. This cannot go on, can it? These cheap blood-stained gadgets and products are simply not worth the human and environmental price. This is not even good in the long term. We cannot afford to destroy our limited habitat on our planet. Earth is all we have, for now, and with the current exploding global population growth we will need the entire habitat that is availed on this planet. Limited natural resources are leading to a situation where humanity will increasingly compete for resources. Africa is a good example of a renewed resource scramble. China is ‘buying-up’ (or trying to) natural resources on the whole of the African continent. We cannot allow ourselves to destroy more of our habitat, because it will only make the situation worse. 

Sadly, I doubt humanity is capable to improve the situation. There is not any significant political will to do anything about these things. If there were, we could probably get far on solving these issues. The power of the human WILL can be incredibly, but is sadly too often underestimted. I will not get in-depth about this, or well I will name a few examples. Just think about those people who discovered America, went to the moon, or fought wars successfully despite terrible odds. Finland in WW2 against Soviet Union in Winter War (Finland fought alone), Vietnam (communists) in 1960s against USA, Afghan combatants against the Soviets and now against the West. These are just a tiny bit of examples of the power of the human WILL.

What about the responsibility of the companies that have out-sourced their production. This is a question I keep asking. How come so many companies fail to follow regulations of Western standards when they off-shore their production? There are many reasons for that (I will not go into that now).

It is so sad that we have incredible scientists and know-how, countless of solutions to these problems. . . but no will.  These things should be obvious, but they clearly are not.