Saving the World
On Monday I stayed in an airport hotel. A note in the bathroom informed me that each re-used towel would help provide drinking-water in the developing world. On Tuesday I passed through Schiphol Airport. A tub invited contributions of PET bottles ‘for clean water in Africa’. I’ve just stepped off a Delta flight, during which the announcement was repeatedly made: ‘Flight by flight we can make a difference. You shouldn’t have to choose between seeing the world and saving it!’ A concern for global welfare is laudable. But surely there is something not right about statements suggesting that I, by chucking plastic into plastic or by taking trans-Atlantic flights, am saving the world? It seems to me a way of anaesthetising conscience, potentially of paralysing real constructive action. I think of a brilliant take on absurdities in self-satisfied aid rhetoric produced by the SAIH in 2012. If you haven’t already seen it, do watch RadiAid: Africa for Norway.
