Sometimes I become overwhelmed when I think of all the problems in the world and how much responsibility I have. I feel pulled in so many different ways and I cannot decide what is more important to devote myself to.
For example, I am trying this part-time vegetarian lifestyle. I really like it even though it is difficult sometimes. I will eat meat when I am with groups or if someone else is cooking for me, but when I cook for myself I do not use meat and I do not buy meat. Why? Well I wont go into detail but the way mass productions of farm animals works I do not want to eat their meat or support their business. Also, I just think eating fresh produce just seems healthier. It is more difficult to keep fresh food from going bad and I have been struggling with what meals to cook, but it is going good. Also, I have heard, but have no proof, that if America ate less meat it could help with world poverty.
So I devote myself to a part-time veggie lifestyle but then I also want to eat organic. I do not know how much crap is put into our foods but I know it is not natural and not good and our bodies do not know what to do with it. High fructose corn syrup for example. What the crap is that stuff and why is it in everything? Not good! I obviously have no proof of this but I will not be surprised at all of all of the pesticides and preservatives in our foods gives all of us cancer and Alzheimer’s and those bad diseases. Scary! So I try to eat my fresh food organic. But what is the downside of organic? More expensive!
The next problem is world poverty which means I do not want to put my money towards organic food but to the poor. But does just sending money really help? I don’t know but I do not know what else to do. This is probably the worst one for me that overwhelms me the most because it is sooooooo widespread and devastating and I just sit at home and eat my organic food and try and decide whether to be a veggie or not when most people don’t even have a choice of what they eat. I am such a food snob! Jesus helped the poor and I want to also. I want to live the love of Christ and not just talk about it but I just don’t even know where to start. This even bleeds over into my planning on doing mission work. I am sure it is what I want to do and what God wants for me but sometimes I just want to move to Africa and help the poor somehow. I hope I can help the poor in Chile.
What is a major cause of world poverty? AMERICA! We are the biggest consumer of the worlds resources and if we were not hogging it all maybe the rest of the world would have a chance. I know it is not as easy as that but something has got to change. But what can I do? If I try to live a less consumerist lifestyle that is not even going to make a dent in the world problem. Not that I should not try but it does not make the overwhelming feeling go away because the world just keeps going down the tube.
And speaking of the world going down the tube what about the environment and the animals. I recycle, ride my bike, use reusable grocery bags and energy saving light bulbs but again, is it even making a dent? And what about all the poor animals that are dying because we are taking away their food and their land. What about the polar bears! I don’t know about global warming but I do know we are killing our planet. On this issue America is not the worst but that is only because we have the money to worry about the environment. Places where people do not have enough food to live are not worried about the dying animals or the pollution their poor paying plants are putting out. So to help the environment we need to help the poor. But if our planet is dead it won’t even matter.
Besides world poverty there is so much evil that goes on in our world from corrupt governments, to child prostitution, slave labor, horrible effects of alcohol, and drugs, and AIDS. Man! And don’t even get me started on war. I know I am against it, that’s all I am going to say.
See my problem? Do I need to pick one issue and go with it full force or should I stay committed to each problem and only make a little difference. Do I even have the guts to go full force? I do not want to be annoying and force my ideas on everyone else, especially when I am not well researched, but I also know the more people concerned the bigger difference we can make.
All I can do is remind myself that I am not superman (or Jesus) and it is not my job to fix the world but I feel a huge responsibility to do something. These issues do not even touch on the problem of Christianity in the world. That is a whole other blog! I do think that it is my responsibility as a Christian to be concerned and to try and make a difference and use what I know to help as much as possible.
PS- I wrote this real fast so it might not be expressed very well.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
- Deanna June 5, 2008 at 8:00 PM
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wow! that was a lot of info ryan. thanks for your opinion. the more people who care about these problems the better. but believe me no one wants me to run for office. that would be hilarious!
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comments:
High fructose corn syrup for example. What the crap is that stuff and why is it in everything?
Distilled corn juice. It's no different than say orange juice made from concentrate. It's in everything because corn farms are subsidized, and other sugar products are tariffed to the point where you pay a huge premium... much like your organic food. This goes back to FDR and his wonderful new deal. Thus, corn's cheap and it's used to sweeten things. It's no worse for your body than any other high calorie substance.
I don’t know about global warming but I do know we are killing our planet.
No, we are changing our planet. The world has been much warmer and much colder than it is now. In the late 1700s New England froze over every year. We know this because the revolutionary army took cannon across the frozen rivers. Greenland was named such because it was green. Vikings raised sheep there and grew barley. The little ice age coated it in a glacier which now covers 800,000 square miles of arable crop land. You can grow enough wheat on that much land to feed hundreds of millions... maybe billions. Melting that ice sheet might be the quickest way to feed the masses.
What is a major cause of world poverty? AMERICA! We are the biggest consumer of the worlds resources and if we were not hogging it all maybe the rest of the world would have a chance.
Wrong. We are a large consumer, but we are also the number one producer of food. We're the number 3 producer of oil. We send twice as much money to other nations as the next closest nation. Granted the percentages are low and efficiency can always be improved. However, the way to do that is not to swear off meat and recycle.
There are many paths to dealing with poverty. First is from the bottom up. To provide food for Africa, you must teach Africa to provide food for itself. It was doing fairly well until Robert Mugabe decided that the evil white people had too much money. He then stole their farms and gave them to his political allies and poor black people who had no idea how to farm. His actions have sent Zimbabwe into a spiral of hyperinflation. Inflation stands at 100,000% since 2006. To feed these people, you must educate them and show them how to run a government and an economy.
The second way is from the top down. Decimating the US economy would starve at least a billion people, if not more. Tearing down the coal plants, smashing the sky scrapers and singing kumbaya would doom half the world. The key is to increase efficiency. We shouldn't be shooting for cars that get 30 miles to a gallon of gasoline, we should be shooting for 300 mpg. A 200 MW solar plant will do nothing. A few 2GW space based solar plants which can beam power anywhere in the world on demand will. We should be growing food on asteroid farms and dropping it to Africa for free, not growing it in the midwest and burning a tanker full of oil to ship it there. The key to solving poverty and hunger is cheap power and cheap space access. We fed America by moving from a horse pulled buggy to railroads. We will feed the world with a step of the same magnitude. You want to help? Vote for those who know their science, not those who pretend to. Vote for those who will advance our economy, not destroy it in the name of the the environment. Better yet, run for office and move the world in the direction it needs to go, not in the direction that the uneducated masses will drive it directed by propaganda.
We certainly can return to mud huts and eat only the vegetables which we grow ourselves, but billions will die if we do. Technology is the only way to sustain the population we've created. The only technology which will feed and power us into the future is that which is in space. CFL bulbs won't do it, recycling paper and plastic won't, nor will buying less trinkets from China. We have industrial numbers of humans, we need industrial processes to sustain them.