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A World Wide View
NMB, Florida March 21, 2002 A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.
A WORLD WIDE VIEW
Don Brotherson sent me an e-mail with a web-address that enabled me to call
up on my computer screen a worldwide view as seen from a satellite. It is
breathtaking. Using costly blue-black background the nighttime picture of
the globe is stretched out so that all the continents are outlined by the
lights at night that may be seen for hundreds of miles from space.
What is breath-taking and wrenching at the same time is the visualization
of the primacy of the United States stretching from the Atlantic to the
Pacific glowing with burning energy. The U.S. along with Europe and Japan
(a very small appendage) seem to be the chief users of energy - most of
which is extracted from non-renewable sources, oil and coal. We have it and
are not reticent about using and showing it.
The picture also points out in light that the edges of South America,
Africa and Asia are populated and have the service of that electric power to
give light and energy to run the machines that make people rich and
comfortable. The richest people on earth by this measure are the Americans
and the Europeans - and Japanese.
The most heavily populated areas of the world, India and China, show light
but it is lightly distributed. Most of the stretches of land in the world
in Canada, the interior of the Americas, Africa and the Eastern Steppes of
Russia that sweep into Mongolia and China are empty. The vast interior of
the Island Continent of Australia shows no light at all.
This nighttime picture shows the gas guzzling, oil-using monarch of the
world and indicts the United States of America. We are the chief offenders
of unregulated and selfish use of resources above and below the ground. We
are the chief culprits of Global Warming and this picture is all the
evidence needed to prove this charge.
Unless we look at ourselves and become shamed at what we are and what we do
and then do something about it, the lights in that picture will one day soon
go out. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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