Humans MUST be admired for their commitment to selective
blindness and ignorance. They KNOW what is in their best interest yet they
continue to ignore it and pretend that their situation is different.
It started with dog poo.
Dog owners are typically responsible and pick up after their
animals as required by law, but there are a minority (or is it a silent
majority) that CANNOT notice their dog bearing down to squeeze out a nugget.
Surely the human must notice the tension on the lead or
strange circling behaviour of their pet, but it always seems to be at that time
that the human gets in touch with their Ornithology gene and starts bird
watching. This leaves the nugget on the
footpath or nature strip of some unsuspecting home owner to be flung around
when next the lawn is mowed.
Even worse, it could be at the park where “everyone does it –
so it must be ok”. It is not ok. Ask any amateur sports person who has slid
through it, stomped on it, hit it, fell in it or kicked it and see what they
think of it. Ask any pram pushing parent
how they felt when they got the pram in the car only to discover their new
aromatherapy was Eau du Puppy.
You would have thought we would have learnt.
By now you may be thinking either “oops… I’ve done that” or “it’s
a disgrace, damn dog owners.” If you are of the latter, when was the last time
you chucked something out the window of a moving car, put a non-recyclable in
the recycling bin, put a recyclable in the non-recycling bin or threw some foreign
object in a water way?
In Ye Olde Englande, humans just lobbed the bath water and
chamber pot out the window. Over the years this slowly moved to open sewers (pumped
straight into the river) to closed sewers (still pumped into the river) and now
finally we have some decent sewage processing that can turn our waste into pure
water and by product.
You would have thought we would have learnt.
We now have expeditions that are hiking up Mount Everest
purely to collect the rubbish. From empty oxygen cylinders to dead bodies, we
continue to leave our waste in some of the most pristine areas. There is so
much space junk orbiting the earth that it is starting to damage satellites and
there are high level discussions to do a rubbish collection space run.
You would have thought we would have learnt.
The younger generations seem to be more accustomed to
considering the full impact of their actions but there are exception. The more
mature generations, who run most of our corporations, are less likely to
consider the impact of their actions and those of their companies than the
impact on their bottom line.
What is needed is RESPONSIBILITY. That equates to the
Ability to Respond. It is not fun to pick up dog poo, especially if you have a
big dog. But if you choose to own a dog, part of the deal is looking after it.
It is not fun to correct the environmental and social impact of your business
but that is part of the responsibility of running a business.
Humans MUST be admired for their commitment to selective
blindness and ignorance. They KNOW what is in their best interest yet they
continue to ignore it and pretend that their situation is different.
Where can you take responsibility?
