My
mother is a wonderful person! Really! I know we all say this. But I want to stress it.
In spite of the hard things she had to cope in life she always remained a sweet
person. I can never say enough how much I admire her for that. But she was
never an activist. My father, on the other side, was a trade unionist during
the hot period after the Portuguese revolution. Hence I always got the comment
“You must have gotten that from your father” that always made me smile.
But I
remember my mother being very fired up about one issue many years ago. They
wanted to build a coal power plant in my hometown. And I remember this
particular discussion at home, during a meal: it couldn’t be, it would pollute
the air, it was bad for our health, it would be bad for my bronchitis, it
couldn’t be and “Vianenses” where protesting against it.
And they
succeeded. I’m grateful and proud of them for that. I don’t remember when this
happened, but surely around 30 years ago.
I
reminded this story when I saw these news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/12/european-coal-pollution-premature-deaths
30
years gone and Europeans are paying the price for harmful decisions from
previous decades. But our leaders didn’t learn anything and insist in doing the
same mistakes. Or maybe not... the problem is that human life has a low
Greedy’s rating.
