Why would anyone reading Gwynne Dyer's April 3 article, "Civilization will live or die by new technology," make any real effort to lead a life that would make Earth's future more sustainable?
We love our consumer-centered lifestyles far too much, myself included, with all their attendant creature comforts and material indulgences to heed environmentalist doomsday warnings. Few people would be willing to give it all up for the simple yet Earth-sustainable life that Mahatma Gandhi led in India.
Gandhi was an advocate not only for peace among nations and people of this world, but also for peace with nature. And Gandhi was too much the gentleman and far too spiritually enlightened to express his true contempt for so-called Western civilization.
What "civilization" would bring all life on Earth to the brink of extinction in great blinding flashes of thermonuclear war; and pollute and destroy farmlands, rivers and oceans in the name of "prosperity"? Any civilization that requires six times the resources available on the planet to sustain itself is not terribly civilized.
Gandhi wore the simple dhoti to identify himself with the poorest of the poor. Whom does that remind you of? Jesus? How many modern Christian ministers in America would wear such simple attire as that worn by Gandhi or Christ even if it meant helping to stop global warming?
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.