Published Oct. 25, 2010
"In 2014, ExxonMobil is scheduled to start shipping natural gas through a 450-mile pipeline and on to Japan, China and other markets in East Asia. But the project, which is expected to bring Papua New Guinea $30 billion over three decades and to radically increase its gross domestic product, will force a country already beset by state corruption and to grapple with the windfall... Local leaders worry about the continuing flow of guns [with more money coming in through ExxonMobil] into an area with almost no government presence, and no paved roads, electricity, running water, banks or post offices...While the West's richest companies are used to seeking natural resources in the world's poorest corners, few places on earth seem as ill-prepared as the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea."
Okay, first off, I think it's outrageous that we are going into the poorest countries of the world and robbing them of their resources in order to fulfill our greedy, snobby desires, in order to better OUR lives. And we wonder why so many other countries don't like us? I don't understand how we continuously take and take and take from other unbelievably poor countries to make our lives richer, easier, and "better." Did it ever occur to ExxonMobil that maybe it isn't that we need to go take oil from the poorest countries because it's becoming scarce everywhere else, but maybe that we need to find other means of energy? Probably not, because just like every other American business, their probably greedy and just want to fill their pockets the quickest, easiest way possible. What about sustainable development -- meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs? Or, like discussed in Designers, Visionaries, and Other Stories, Triple Top Line -- the objective to balance economic, social, and environmental responsibilities to aim towards a win-win situation and focus on 'effectiveness' rather than 'efficiency.' Sheesh, come on people.
Like Albert Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/10/25/world/1026PAPUA-2.html
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