February 16th 2008
One and the same.
I just saw a commercial for the S.C. Johnson product Windex. The commercial appeared to claim that they reformulated the cleaner to be safer for both people and the planet. At the end of the commercial they said something to the effect of, “Here at S.C. Johnson, we care about your family and the planet.”
Now, I don’t know about these claims. I’m not claiming to be for or against S.C. Johnson or Windex. However, that last statement got me thinking. What’s the difference? If something is polluting to the environment, it is also polluting to us, either directly or indirectly. For instance, if bleach is a bad thing to feed a plant, its probably also bad for us because 1) it will burn us and 2) its killing our source of food.
So, anything that is bad for the environment is bad for us because of those two reasons. This brings us to the rather obvious conclusion that if we are polluting the planet, we are polluting ourselves because we both live in that environment and consume products of that environment (plants and, in some cases, animals).
Thus, when someone claims that they do not care about the planet, what are they really saying? They’re saying they don’t care about life. No, this is not an exaggeration. This person can be deemed as extremely close-minded for the simple reason that they do not understand the basic principle of “poison in the waterhole”. If you poison a source of requirement for life, everything down the chain from it will also be poisoned. Simple enough.
Usually people claim not to care about pollution and environmental problems for the reason that they’ll be dead when it gets too bad. I guess they don’t realize that pollution done now is (duh) polluting now, not later. Or, they don’t accept the basic principles outlined above (poison in food / environment = poison in consumer).
Either way you look at it, if you pollute, or if you don’t care about the environment, you are polluting / don’t care about life. Human life, animal life, all life. Your life.
Lia Cross
