Saturday, May 24, 2008 Editorial: To end decadence
OIL prices in the world market have far surpassed the US$13 mark and oil companies have to increase at least P10 just within the next few days to cope.
Rice is still a problem as manifested by the long lines at National Food Authority (NFA) accredited stores selling P18.25 per kilo. As think tanks are repeatedly saying the days of cheap food is over. And from how oil prices are behaving, it's obvious too that the days of cheap oil are long gone.
When we look into how we are living our lives today, what is happening around us is in fact a parody of our excesses.
Nowhere in history has there been so much gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles designed for off-road situations criss-crossing our paved city streets. And there's more than one per family at that. Whence before the so-called four-wheel drives (four-wheel vehicles was how the SUVs were called before some great marketing mind thought of making these gas-guzzlers sound hip to entice buyers to buy vehicles that they really do not have real use for) were bought because the users need to go up mountains, cross rivers, and bounce on rough roads. Today, more than half of these huge vehicles have not even crossed a stream. Rather, today's huge vehicles have become accessories to add to the vanity of many who need accoutrements to make them feel good about themselves. While the more gas-efficient cars are only for the sissies.
Nowhere in history have we seen so many air-conditions in one house such that even kitchens are now air-conditioned and houses are built with solid walls and small windows much like those in western countries which are visited by winter every year.
Nature endowed us with a weather that turns cool at night and doesn't freeze us every quarter of a year and yet we build houses and buildings that do not make the most of these endowments, and thus we find ourselves sweating profusely and staggering in the dark whenever there is a power interruption. Simply because all we built were concrete and glass walls guaranteed to keep the air-conditioned coolness and fluorescent lights in and the natural breeze and sunlight and moonlight out.
Nature endowed us with rich soil that would have guaranteed us food for generations to come, but we gave these all away to plantations who rely on chemical inputs to prop up their exports, and mining companies who see mountains as something that has to be moved out and sluiced off in order to get their hands the minerals hidden beneath.
What do we have in exchange? Cool, brand-new, shiny SUVs run by gas that is threatening to cost more than P60 per liter, and rice at outrageously high prices, and a government that is thinking of rationing oil if things get worse.
Thus, as we ponder on how much the oil will cost anew next week, we appeal as well for people to listen to the hidden message that all the events happening around us are saying: We have had our days of decadence, it's time we appreciate only those that we really need so that our children will still have a bit of what we are enjoying now. A lush environment is one. An SUV isn't.
