Guest Post Dude (robin on break)

Dudes,

What Robin is saying here is that environmentalists have, for a long time, been totally freaked out by the destruction of coral reefs, rain forest habitat, extinction and stuff.

Not even me, man

Then the ones who got all serious about protecting against that stuff started trying out businesses which preserve the rain forests and oceans and stuff.  Like fair trade coffee farms, sustainable fisheries, and recycling.  The recycling thing, that was huge, because it turned all of us into, like, this big urban forest, this urban mine, and we could reduce the consumption of natural resources and energy, like.   I mean, compared to building incinerators which then had to be fed more and more junk, that bunch of guy dudes and girl dudes doing the recycling thing in the 80s and 90s, man, that was totally respectful.

Then when recycling got mainstream (boring to activists), these guys started looking at toxics.  Like, if we are the source of raw materials like fiber and copper and aluminum and steel, from our mining houses, then let's also look at our toxics, man.  Totally awesome.  We got these budgets based on diverting toxics from these landfills and incinerators, and we made even more jobs.



Then, you know, he's saying that we kind of forgot that the mercury comes from gold and silver mining, and the cadmium too, and that the electroplating of stuff is all serious poisons and stuff.    And the recyclers started stopping reuse programs.  Wow!  It's like we totally forgot, man!  Shredding something that still works, so we can mine more or do more new electroplating, we were sticking our dang fingers in our eyes or something.

"Some people get all emotional and some times man they don't act rational, and you know, they think they're just on TV."  - Lou Reed Street Hassle

So, dudes, Robin asked me to write this because he's got all these emotional frustrations and stuff, and he doesn't even smoke pot anymore (totally should, man, he needs to get a little elevation from the problem).  He needs to get away for a little while.

"I'm Batman!"

He kind of feels like he tried making the same points by being nice and stuff, about seven years ago.  But when the folks who tell everyone they are the good guys start letting everyone believe that his fair trade friends in Indonesia and Malaysia and Mexico and Egypt, like they are polluters or something... That was really tough on the dude, you know?  And he kind of went batman or green hornet or spidey, you know when the good guy gets all self-carpeted in suits and stuff and people talk about their inner conflicts and stuff.

So anyway, he knows way more about this stuff than me, man.  But dudes, I totally remember Jacques Cousteau, showing those brilliant coral reefs off of Borneo and Papua New Guinea.  And making the electronics out of non-toxic tin to preserve our landfills, when the tin gets mined from the Indonesian and Malaysian islands.. and then we collect mercury for recycling but we sell it to gold burning mining guys in the Amazon and Congo river basins.

Man, you got to have the courage to tell your friends they are messing up.  And man like believe me, I've tried that, like when my brother was doing some chemicals that were totally wasting him, and it's like not fun to take on and you kind of want to look the other way.  But the folks who tell my brother to Parteee because they are selling him shit, that's like not who his real friends are man.  And I think in a way, this is kinda like that, because some people are making money because the working stuff got shredded or they put some machine instead of hand-disassembly jobs.   And some of the enviro dudes who are like all mad at Robin, they are getting whispered to like that a-hole who was selling to my brother.

Dudes, like I don't know if this makes any sense or what.  But if you don't like what this messed up depressed dude is writing, we got to kind of step in for him, man.   Anyway, this is my try.  Maybe some scientist or engineering or doctors dudettes can come in and give this Fair Trade Recycling some splaining.

The Dude.