Vanishing acts, chastity belts and consumerism

 

Question:  What do pirates, gum disease, and chastity have in common?

Answer:  Vanishing rain forests.

 

What?  Wait, stay with me.  This is easy.

 

The major ravages of deforestation are many – loss of fertile soil systems, degradation of resources, crop loss and starvation, eroding economies, displacement of local populations, and changes in weather patterns.

 

Bad stuff.  And these are just the high-profile casualties.  What about lower-profile victims of vanishing wood products, which for lack of media attention never see the front pages?

 

Peg-legs for pirates who lose a leg to a hungry shark, and whose quality of life depends on a realigned gait to keep from walking in circles.

 

Toothpicks for routing out spinach and elusive food particles, to prevent gum disease and unsightly "tooth-gap."

 

Chastity belts to keep a maiden pure during her lordship's absence by preventing illegal entry into her sacred temple (locks to secure the belts were made of oak before it was learned wood was no deterrent against a knight armed with a keyhole saw).

 

In "Big Yellow Taxi" singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell fired a warning shot about the dangers of deforestation:  "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.  They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

 

Mitchell’s lyrics are a conundrum.  Is deforestation the collateral damage of market response to sate ravenous appetites?  Or is it a cog in a profits-driven wheel to transform civilization into ravenous consumers to fatten corporate pockets?

 

Are there limits to consumerism?  Is excessive consumerism destructive?  What are its warning signs?  Is there a moral imperative to oppose it?  What price to pay, who must pay it, and how to quantify the damages of reckless consumption unless we chart its debris trail, recover and identify its victims?

 

My head throbs searching for answers.

 

What?  Oh, the part about chastity belts?  Mostly fabrication.  Sometimes y’hafta get creative to draw attention to tough questions.