Only one person found the Easter Egg. If you are the one (he/she is from the Univ. of Michigan) , please email me at mnoorsha-AT-umich-DOT-edu. =)
It is hard being a Green.
We fight for almost everything that was created at the beginning of time. We fight as if we were the conservative, trying to stop everything from changing the precious world. In that, we at the same time are fighting against the very instrument that allows us to improve our lives.
Human advancements have made them, us dependable on electricity. A not single day is spent without anyone of us riding a vehicle or even switching on the light. All these activities are making Gaia sick but ironically, even the Greens do these almost everyday. Ayn Rand, well known for her stand against the idea of environmentalism once said that the Greens live a life full of guilt. According to her, life for the Greens is a dilemma. She went on by saying that the Greens fight for a greener world but at the same time, their own existence is destroying the world. Although her stance as an industrialist is considered as demon by the Greens, nevertheless her words ring every time we switch the light on, ride a bus or watch the television.
Guilt is what I feel every day. It keeps me thinking how my actions go one hundred and eighty degree against my ideal. When I eat and if the food somehow makes my hand dirty, I will always have a debate on whether should I take the tissue paper to clean it up or not. Most of the time I don’t take the paper but when I do, guilt overwhelms me.
Another delicate issue is the idea of evolution. Most of us in this modern world accept the theory well enough. Compressed in a sentence, the theory asserts the phrase survival the fittest. Now, apply that theory to the endangered species problem. It is clear how we should not even try to help the species. Even in simulation, some of the species tend to die out, giving more space to the dominating one.
The Gaia Theory itself, if I understand properly, says that the Earth, Gaia is a living thing – ever-trying to balance up and heal herself. So, everything that is happening, the climate change (of course, the human is still at fault because they worsen the warming more than necessary), the fauna extinction – it happens simply because of Gaia herself is trying to regulate her system.
Nevertheless, every day when I face these problems, I say to myself, we don’t have to go back to the primitive. We need to live and while living our life, some sacrifice needs to be done. Industries need to be allowed to strive but at the same time, we can or rather need to preserve what are necessary. Gaia is regulating herself but like our own biological system, without the medicine, we’ll fall sick. So, we must act as the medicine.
To come to think of it, we are not fighting for a greener world. We are simply fighting for a better world, for our children, for our future. The industrialist holds the same utopia, a better world but what makes the line between us and them is pronounced so strongly is simply the method we use to reach the same goal. They are taking the aggressive approach while we are leading into the greener path.
Certainly, our ideal far surpasses our guilt.
