The Price of Success is Often Too High
Success is a very subjective parameter to classify and stratify. Oft, the presumed success is at a cost that negates the observed benefits. Ayub Chege outlines the successful Western economies that are dictated to to retain a certain standard irregardless of the intrinsic factors at home.
The Soil Association had bolted the British doors for tropical farm products in the name of carbon miles. Each and every must soon wake up to their effect on the global climate change. The reminder is not as dramatic as the floods in the Midlands and soaring temperatures in Romania. And the unrepentant Asian giants are facing their own deluge as hundred thousands are left homeless and destitute. Far south, the desert advances some three kilometres every year. Forests elsewhere are burning year round.
Supposing, just supposing, instead of burning the ten thousand carcases infested with foot-and-mouth in South East, the good steak was to be saved. Imagine the burning good beef polluting the atmosphere over Wiltshire as Darfur thousands are staring starvation in the face. Says who that we the populace in Bristol care a hoot whether the milk or the beef has potential to have brushed with the foot-and-mouth affected stock, or whether we care for the Brussels’ standards?
The height of hypocrisy is taking up rules that we know in our own hearts that we do not ascribe to. With the wonderful internet and ability to source information, most would by now have known that there would be actually no health danger to one eating a diseased animal. Yet, we are the first to “silently boycott” the local butcheries. We stamp the Brussels bureaucracy by not supporting our own.
Therefore, the extra carbon emitted into the atmosphere is not different from that generated by the air-flight of cut flowers from Nairobi. The beef going to waste in Surrey is no different from that I consumed with relish in Nakuru. The viral strain in Surrey is forty damn years old and isolated- more virulent ones have since ravaged the tropics and they have not stopped locals feasting on animals without let. And believe me, they are much healthier than I am as I peck at silly meals meant to make me healthier by someone who wants to anaesthetise my guts.
What a high price we pay for success- but is it worth it? What success is there if hundreds of thousands of pounds are lost in smoke just to retain a degree of success rated by some trade economists in Brussels? What success is there if our hobbies take higher moral ground than common sense? What mark of success would we aspire just to belong to a “club” that has little regard for nature and a safe future for our children?
May be caveman still has lessons for us…
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