Editor,
I have become a fan of the Daily Lobo's editorial page.
Without the continuously conflicting opinions, I think my mornings on the shuttle would be absolutely dreadful.
Aside from that, I would like to address the letter about the environment by Samuel Chavez on Thursday. I love that there are people who care enough about the environment to start an awareness campaign. But will it really help?
I can't help but feel like people are just wasting their breath. Call me a pessimist, but most people just don't care enough.
That is not to say I am exempt from this statement, because I too have given into the weaker nature of my being and taken part in the destruction of this world.
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No, I don't litter, but I have never ceased in my gas consumption or proceeded to force my friends to do otherwise. That's not the real concern. The real concern here is that I represent the masses - the people who are too busy living their lives to stop and think about the long-term consequences of pollution.
I've seen Al Gore present his speech on global warming, so it's nothing foreign to me. I know the price the world pays for my convenience, but when I drive home, I can't help but look around and see all people who drive their cars just as I do.
I also recycle, even though I know recycling does little but slow the deterioration of this world. So what's the answer?
Well, unfortunately, the only viable answer is unfolding right before our eyes. In any system in which a society as large as ours embeds itself in the use of fossil fuels, there must be a mass alteration in the pattern to stop it.
The environmental campaigns have become nothing more than a tool used for advertising, as Chavez clearly pointed out. So, evidently, even these have failed to produce the effect that is direly needed for change on a massive scale.
The way I see it, the only way is this: complete and utter failure of the system.
What do I mean by that? Exactly what is happening - the world is slowly ceasing to be inhabitable by the numbers in which we inhabit it. I can't wait to see the replies to this in the Daily Lobo.
Someone is probably going to try and tell me there is another way, that there has to be another way. Quite frankly, I just don't see it happening.
We consume with an insatiable thirst, and it will not be quenched by remodeling cars to be more efficient or making gas out of food that other countries desperately need.
Simply put, we Americans will never break through the mentality that the world is ours, and as the strongest people in the world, we deserve everything we want. When this chicken comes home to roost, it's going to suck.
Matthew Patrick De La O
UNM student
