The Ascendancy of The Hogs

They seem to be everywhere. The lone driver in the enormous SUV next to you at the gas station, pouring gallons of increasingly scarce gas into a seemingly limitless tank; vehicles the size of ancient sailing ships forcing themselves in compact parking spaces and reducing available spaces and garage capacity by 20 to 30%; the co-worker at the next cubicle who refuses to re-label folders and consumes an entire box every week; the buffet grazers who overload their plates, leave half the food, and then go back for more; the neighborhood eyesores of huge mansions erected to the lot lines of once simple working class homes; the folks who pump out children into the world, willy-nilly, consuming dwindling resources and overburdening limited social services; the CEOs who earn four hundred and fifty times their median workers, focusing their energy on their own retirement provisions; and the oil companies with their rapacious designs on any untapped, pristine lands to increase their already obscene profits.

We have created an atmosphere where the hogs can thrive -those who look at the world with an attitude of entitlement and privilege. We cruise unaware through a pathless universe on this oh-so-fragile spaceship earth only to watch it abused by those who believe they have a prerogative on finite resources and deserve it all.

We rightfully bemoan war, gas prices, political corruption and the state of world affairs. But as we gird up to fight the major evils we see on the horizon, maybe it is time to turn our eye inward and closer to home. One individual who takes responsibility for their part in preserving the only planet we've got has little meaning. Conservation and a mutually supportive outlook by 200 million individuals would change the future.

Roast pork anyone?