To the Editor,
Re: Exploiting resources unsustainable, Letters, July 9.
It is interesting to observe the manner in which Ron Heusen appeared to ridicule the contributions of industry and commerce to society over the past 250 years since the Industrial Revolution began.
He went further, adding, “Industrial expansionism is dependent on exponential extraction of finite resources and that formula is not sustainable.”
What tommyrot.
Industrial expansion, far from being a negative influence on our lives, has been immensely positive. We no longer have to bury our food in the ground to try to keep it cool, or suffuse it with salt in a vain effort to preserve it. We no long cook over an open fire, a practise which led to the destruction of homes and lives through urban conflagrations.
We no longer have to shiver through winter cold or swelter in intense summer heat without relief. We no longer have to consult physicians who operated without splendid instruments, anesthesias, proper lighting and wonderful electron microscopes – all advances through industrialization – and our world is no longer circumscribed by just a few miles or kilometers as it was for century upon century – more gifts of industrialization.
Perhaps Mr. Heusen should expand his vocabulary just a little bit further by including the word “Luddite”, defined as one who “is opposed to industrialization or new technology.”
I infinitely prefer our life in this era, as opposed to a time when men and women spent their entire lives scrounging in the earth just to find their daily sustenance, which I believe is the direction we will all be headed if voices such as his become the prevailing political power.
Leonard Melman
Nanoose Bay