Will Green Hurt Poor People?

We in America are spoilt! Period. Spoilt, rotten, that includes "moi". Even our government is spoilt. We spend our days debating and analyzing. Lobbying and pontificating, while the rest of the world runs past. Maybe the government should go green and eradicate the toxic politicians that sit day after day draining our resources. A blogger, and I will call no name has posted a huge article about green hurting poor people. Being raised poor, and I mean really poor, not the poor but eating meat everyday poor, with a car in the garage type of poor. No, I mean carrying the daily supply of water poor. No refrigerator poor. Walking to school poor. Milking the cow poor. Chasing that chicken for Sunday lunch poor. So back to Mr.Socially Concious probably Ivy League grad world educator. He theorizes that going green will hurt poor people. I got some "educmackashion" for him. Green will not succeed without inviting in poor people. I'll tell you about my upbringing. I am sure you will agree it was the ultimate green and today I truly miss that luxurious poverty. The notion that green will hurt poor people is a sentiment aimed and propogating the strangle hold that big business has on the world resource pool.




My grand mother was, though unkowing to her, a green lifer. I must admit not through choice but through economic need. Funny thing is, I vividly remember how beautiful my childhood was. We had chickens in the yard, no lawn mower, well, we had no lawn...LOL, a bicycle that my uncles rode to work, a backyard garden, no electricity, she made her own soap and starch from cassava, we collected rain water. I still try to remember the name of the vine that we used to brush our teeth in the morning. Way better than Colgate. My grandma passed with a full mouth of teeth.



The only time my grandmother rode a vehicle was when she had to grudgingly head into the city. Her cooking was done on a small kerosene ( not healthy I eventually found out) stove, though she favored the three rock approach in her humble backyard. Her constant singing while doing laundry on a half barrel with a scrub board (locally made) that the villagers referred to as a "jooking" board still resonates in my head. Most of the soap was made by the older heads until later on we started to see laundry detergent. The broom was made of coconut straws. BTW...the coconut tree provided altogether about 30 household products, from brooms to oil, to perfumes.



I present these little scenarios because, Mr. Just turned Green, your question should not be whether going green will hurt poor people, it should be whether affluent people could survive in a green world. Would you trade your toilet for a latrine? or your sauna for a bucket and barrel with a "dipper". Would you eat beef only on special occasions? Would you compost in your backyard? Or would the smell be offensive to you? Would you willingly give up your plastic grocery bags for a basket handwoven from the coconut straw? Are you aware that there are still natives in the Amazon who live the ultimate green life but academians are eager to bring "civilization" to them.You see "Sir", green is not a fad, a fashion, a yuppie thrill. It is a way of life for most of the world citizens. My grandma taught us "cut the cane, and plant it back". I am in no way suggesting that we all revert to a world of restrictions. No sir. I love advancements, capitalism is great, but I detest the notion that being green is something that has been "discovered" by the well to do. I detest that being green, or claiming to be green automatically elevates one above the rest of society.



Sustainability is a big word. My grandma might not have been able to spell it, but she practiced it everyday. We recycled and reused, refused and rethought. We looked at the earth as our supermarket, you paid with work. Our tools were cutlasses, hoes, shovels, all handmade. Most, if not all our medicines were backyrad concoctions and damn, they worked.



Going green would definitely help the miners in West Virginia. It will help the poor farmers in Indonesia, and the native people of the Amazon. The very first step would be kicking out the "money or nothing" corporations who have no respect for families. Yes that's going green. Giving farming back to the farmers and rewarding them for their work. Not huge monocrops spewing toxic produce every two weeks. Not paying farmers not to produce so as to strangle the economy with these huge emporiums like Walmart, Associates, Home Depot and Key Foods.



Going green means investigating the pharmaceutical companies and their cohorts who choose to medicate the shit out of our children. When all that is needed is positve, forceful, God fearing parenting. Going green means making it illegal for politicians to put at risk, the very existence of our young men and women for their selfish, ungodly acts of war, based on lies and innuendo. Politicians strengthening and rewarding petrotyrants, and sabotaging innovative efforts to bring sustainable clean energy to scale. Yes sir, Corporate Social Responsibility includes the government.



Yes sir! So if you are ready to go green, bring it on. It was a marvellous life until the world lost its connection to the earth. Poor folks have always lived green. From Japan to Jamaica, Ireland to Indonesia, America to Antigua, Tripoli to Trinidad. We have lived green and enjoyed it.