The Greening of Corporate America

If the average citizen was to throw a paper bag out of their car window or drive down the street without a muffler, they would be ticketed, and rightly so. So why do the major corporations of the world continue to spew forth the pollution that is bringing about the end of the world as we know it that much sooner than necessary, killing off endangered species as though they don't matter without fear of retribution? The answer is money. Like the HMOs, the NRA, the Automakers, and the Oil Companies, a well-placed dollar goes a long way to having government look the other way. The last eight years have given the worst producers of the earth's toxins a free ride with no danger of making changes to save the planet. As one of the people whose children will be most negatively effected by this eight year running start, I would like to see the guilty parties at the very least be made to adhere to a real plan to reverse the damage already done and begin creating environmentally compliant business practices and designs. If they fail to do so in a timely fashion, they should be punished criminally if not monetarily.

I Don't Need to be Told to Shut Off the Lights

At least not since I turned three do I need someone telling me to turn off the lights when I leave the room. Neither do I need to be told the obvious when it comes to saving energy. If I did, I get a reminder every month to that effect in the form of an exorbitant bill from the power company that is no longer owned by the United States since Nimo was sold to England without asking me if I minded or cared that I would now be paying a European country to light and heat my home in upstate New York. That being said, I saw a commercial last night reminding me to shut off the lights when I leave a room and not to waste power in the interest of preserving the earth that George Bush did nothing to preserve for the eight years he had the chance to do so while Congress sat by and watched, now instructing me to go to an on-line government site for further information. As insulting as the implication was that my government thinks I would not try to conserve energy without being told and assuming that my $800 January power bill to keep my family warm and safer than that poor 92 year old man in Michigan was kept by the enormous corporation who decided his fate without protection through oversight by what has become of our greedy government was not incentive enough; I have to wonder where was the commercial that focused on the major corporations themselves to save energy in an effort to save the world. Where is the expensive commercial for which my tax dollars would no doubt pay addressing the automakers who request money to afford the executive bonuses and perks without having made the slightest, let alone serious effort to create an affordable energy efficient mode of transportation to replace the gas powered automobile that has gone as far as it can go safely? Nor did I see a commercial aimed at the oil companies who tout record profits every year at the expense of the taxpayers who are told to shut off their lights when they leave a room to help undue what big business has done to the planet while Congress decides how many of our tax dollars the incompetents will get to solve their problems, increasing our own. We get up every work day to travel to our place of business, at great expense thanks to the price of gas, and we work at our full time jobs to earn a small amount to pay our large bills after stopping at the store to buy less than we used to for more than it ever cost before. If we are lucky, the job we hold includes medical benefits for which we have to pay, something else that eludes Congress members, but we do it and we trust the people we have elected to office are doing the best they can to allow us our way of life, but I no longer believe they are and a commercial to tell us we are not, by their standards, doing enough to save the world while the individuals who have committed the worst offenses to our planet continue business as usual smacks of arrogance with a slap in the face of the people who are doing the best they can every day without government bailouts to fix the mistakes we may make through honest error. It gets harder and harder to believe in these part time employees who make a great deal more money than we do, while doing a lot less work and then take the time to tell us what we could do better. I'd appreciate it more if they just paid attention to the ones adding to our burden, our expense, and our planet's demise. I would gladly see my taxes pay for that commercial.