Environment

So you cut all the tall trees down,
You poisoned the sky and the sea.
You've taken what's good from the ground,
But you've left precious little for me.
You remember the flood and the fall,
We remember the light on the hill.
There should be enough for us all,
But the dollar is driving us still.

The river runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand.
The river runs red, black rain falls on my bleeding land.

So we came and we conquered and found
Riches of commons and kings
Who strangled and wrestled the ground,
But they never put back anything.
Now I'm trapped like a dog in a cage
Wherever the truth is pursued.
It must be the curse of the age
What's taken is never renewed.

The river runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand.
The river runs red, black rain falls on my bleeding land.
The river runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand.
The river runs red, black rain falls on my bleeding land...
...on my bleeding land.
The river runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand (my hand).
The river runs red, black rain falls on my bleeding land.
The river runs red (river runs red), black rain falls (black rain falls), dust in my hand (my hand).
The river runs red (river runs red), black rain falls on my bleeding land...

--Midnight Oil, "River Runs Red"

I love Midnight Oil. They're a rock/alternative group which is very, very green. Green as in environmentalist. I'm pretty green myself, though it is hard not to be when one has been an outdoors enthusiast like me for as long as I have. This song gets me every time, because, though it's about the current state of Australia's environment, it speaks for the world as a whole. Corporations are so focused on short-term profits, so driven towards the bottom line, so short-sighted when it comes to treating the Earth well, that they cannot see that what they are doing will quite possibly make the Earth uninhabitable for humanity in an altogether too-short timeframe. It is heartbreaking. I'm almost tempted to join Greenpeace, but I don't believe that their politics and methods are the right way to do things. I think, as with many things, the best way to effect change is to get into the inside and work from there. It works for virii, both organic and electronic), psychology (hey, if a therapist isn't getting into your mind, thenthey aren't doing the job assigned), and marketing (although that's really the same as psychology); why not the corporate world?

I took a couple of environmental impact quizzes:
EarthDay.net = 12-acre footprint
Nature.org = 15 tons CO2 emissions a year
CarbonFootprint.com = 2.36 tonnes CO2 per year

I try my best most of the time to minimize my impact, but I'm not quite there yet. It does help, being a college student who walks, bikes, or skis everywhere.