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Ethics shouldn't be a mirage

There are these times in life when the world seems to have gone mad. We are all forced to stop and reflect on what is really important. This reflection usually comes at the expense of some world tragedy.

There are these times in life when the world seems to have gone mad.  We are all forced to stop and reflect on what is really important.  This reflection usually comes at the expense of some world tragedy.

As the world watches with horror the unfolding aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, Canadians wonder.  Are we ready?  How would Victoria or Vancouver survive an earthquake of the magnitude Japan was just hit with.  Would a tsunami wipe out some of our oceanside communities?

The wisdom of all sorts of construction decisions becomes fair game for criticism.  People question the necessity of nuclear power plants above human safety.  Chernobyl is a distant memory for some, but a disaster all too real for others.  People died, children were born with deformities, cancer spread like the common cold.  Plant life was stunted.  Landscape looks like a scene from the movie Mad Max.  For the neighbours of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, scars are everywhere.  Families mourn their losses.  Loss of loved ones, homes, communities and security.

It is hard to have faith in a government who would make a decision to build a factory of any sort that could become a weapon of self-destruction for the very people it is supposed to protect.  It is one thing if a decision is based on ignorance and quite another when the decision is based on financial gain.  Years ago, pregnant mothers did not know that cigarettes could harm their unborn baby.  They do now.  So when you know the consequences of your action and you do it anyway, is it the same as when you don’t know?  When a government has seen the results of a power experiment that ended in a complete environmental failure on every level, why would they choose to replicate that kind of situation?

For many forward thinking Canadians, a switch to the power of nature is the only solution to save our country and, to take it a leap further, our planet.  So where does the disconnect occur?  It is sad to focus on cash, pay-outs and corruption, but one can’t help, but wonder how many decisions are based not what is best for the masses, but on what it is best for the few.

Environmental disasters are not something new to our planet.  Last year, one of our oceans were hard hit.  Oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico wiping out marine life at an alarming rate.  Haiti was before that.  While many disasters can be blamed in part on the weather, it is hard not to see how these disasters are magnified by man.  The question remains.  How many times do we have to make the same mistakes before we learn.  If an individual keeps making the same mistakes over and over again they are called stupid, if a government does it they somehow avoid ownership altogether.  What we need is intelligence, accountability and leadership based not on arrogance, but ethics and human life.  It should be possible, not a mirage off in the distance that can never be reached.