Paradise or Garbage Dump—Which Do You Prefer?
NO ONE would have mistaken him for anything other than what he was: a European tourist in need of rest and eager to enjoy the sunshine on an island paradise. Crossing the spacious sand dunes bordering the seashore, he carefully picked his way through a litter of discarded bottles, cans, plastic bags, chewing-gum and candy wrappers, newspapers, and magazines. Clearly irritated, he wondered if this was the paradise he had traveled to reach.
Have you ever had a similar experience? Why do people dream about vacationing in some paradise, but once they are there, seemingly have no scruples about turning it into a veritable garbage dump?
Not Just in “Paradise”
This obvious disregard for beauty, neatness, and cleanliness is not unique to the “paradises” to which many tourists flock. Modern society is severely blighted by pollution almost everywhere. Numerous businesses pollute on a grand scale by creating tons of waste products. Mishandled toxic wastes and accidental oil spills threaten to ruin large areas of our earth, making them unfit for life.
Wars also pollute. As the world looked on in horror, the 1991 Persian Gulf war added a new dimension. Iraqi forces deliberately set fire to some 600 oil wells, transforming Kuwait “into an apocalyptic vision of hell,” as a European newspaper described it. The German magazine Geo termed the inferno “the greatest environmental catastrophe ever inflicted by human hand.”
At war’s end, a clean-up mission was immediately begun. Just extinguishing the burning oil wells entailed many months of hard work. The World Health Organization reported that the increased pollution in Kuwait might cause the death rate there to grow by 10 percent.
Less Dangerous but Very Irritating
For every prominent and flagrant example of large-scale environmental pollution, there are thousands of small-scale examples. Litterbugs and graffiti “artists” may be less dangerous polluters, but they nevertheless help rob planet Earth of its potential to be a paradise.
In some places graffiti are so commonplace that citizens have become “graffiti blind,” hardly noticing them anymore. They are on subway cars, on the walls of buildings, and on telephone booths. No longer are graffiti confined to the walls of public toilets.
Some cities are full of dilapidated and deserted buildings. Residential areas are blemished by untidy homes and yards. Wrecked cars, discarded machinery, and junky debris clutter up farmyards that could otherwise be pleasingly attractive.
In certain circles people seem unconcerned about having unclean and untidy bodies. Flaunting a disheveled look in dress and grooming may be not only acceptable but even fashionable. Those who appreciate neatness and cleanliness are viewed as hopelessly old-fashioned.
What a Tremendous Job!
What a tremendous clean-up campaign would be necessary to transform the beaches, forests, and mountains of our earthly home into the paradises pictured on the covers of glossy tourist magazines—not to mention what would have to be done to cities, towns, and farms and to people themselves!
The aforementioned tourist was pleased to see a clean-up crew going through the area later in the day removing the larger pieces of debris. They left behind, however, pieces of broken glass, bottle caps, tin-can tabs, and too many cigarette butts to count. So even after a cleanup, there was still abundant evidence that the landscape was more closely related to a garbage dump than to a paradise.
A global cleanup to save planet Earth from becoming a global garbage dump would require getting rid of all such vestiges of these blights. Are there any prospects that such a cleanup will take place? If so, how? Who will carry it out? When?