At mid-life, still standing for something

           After my last blog, some of you are probably wondering why I sold out to mainstream society with my love of SUVs and disregard for global warming.  I know, I used to rally for causes such as these.  I used to rally against government for their stance on many issues, now I work for government (now I’m part of the problem!)

          Some of the change happens, I suppose, when you leave the protected halls of a university and enter the real world.  You start to see that there are different sides to the issues and that some things can’t be easily solved.  A well-known Saskatchewan politician (you may know who I’m talking about) once rallied against uranium mining in Saskatchewan when he was a student.  By the time he took power in government, he had changed his tune and became quite a promoter of the uranium industry.  His rationale was that coal was just as dirty, if not worse for the environment.  Of course there was an economic rationale as well.

I also remember this politician saying, “If you don’t stand for something when you’re 20, you won’t stand for anything when you’re 50.”  There’s some truth to that.  We typically become more conservative as we get older.  We get used to the incomes and luxuries that come with working every day, and we tend to want to preserve that security blanket.

          But even in my old age (at 34 I’m nearing mid-life!), I still hold true to a number of values, even though I’m tempted everyday to deviate from them.  For instance, I still believe that simple living is the way to live.  Spending less and giving more is a principle I would like to adhere to.  Yet I can’t deny my own desire to deviate from this almost every day.  I can’t deny that I’d be tempted to buy a nicer home if I had the money. And I certainly can’t deny that I bought a bigger, nicer vehicle when the opportunity arose. Again, when we have the money, it’s hard not to spend it.

          And I still care about the environment.  Locally, there are many things we can do to make things better.  I don’t think it’s good policy for a city in Saskatchewan to not have a city-wide recycling program.  Pardon the pun, but that’s garbage!  And it’s good to drive less in the city.  I’m fortunate that I can bike to work in summer and take the bus in winter.

Taking a global perspective, there are indeed concerns about global warming.  But again, I get irate when this takes precedence over concerns that could be solved for less money.  Instead of spending billions to reduce our emissions and delay global warming by 5 years, we could instead spend millions to eradicate malaria, which kills millions of people in the developing world every year.  Or we could spend the money to prepare developing nations for the impacts of climate change.

Most of all, I still have a concern for international aid and development.  While we have many pet projects in our own country, there are people starving in other parts of the world.  While there are many debates about how to best provide aid, I don’t believe we can close our eyes to the suffering as a result.  There are many organizations that do good work abroad, we just have to learn more about them.

So there, I think I’ve convinced myself that at age 34, I still stand for something.