They have privatised health care, we have public health care. They war against drugs, we de-criminalized marijuana. They have conservative values, we legalized same-sex marriages.

After 9/11, their government urged citizens to shop, spend, and consume, and after the blackouts our governments are urging us to conserve, save, and even close our businesses for a day or two.

Last week the Canadian dollar dropped below 72 cents American. This is reportedly because manufacturing and exports are slow. It's all about things, stuff, consuming. (The beef ban brought down our exports and dollar value, and the mad cow scare was fuelled entirely by American media at about the same time as the Canadian dollar made headline gains. Also, the gains recently made by our dollar hurt our exports. So the reduction in exports hurt our dollar, but the gain in our dollar hurt our exports?)

We're all glad the blackouts weren't terrorism-related. But why did the blackouts happen? What is terrorism? The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines it as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

Many view today's materialist lifestyle as violence against their home, this planet. Thanks to Enron, everybody knows that the bigger the corporation, the more they operate unlawfully. The ideology of the corporation is wealth, and it acquires wealth through consumption. Now corporations are so powerful that they are intimidating governments with money and psychologically coercing individuals with advertising. Violence, unlawfulness, ideology, and coercion... sounds like terrorism to me.

These days, as soon as someone uses the word "Earth" in a sentence about lifestyle, they sound like an ignorant hippie and people dismiss them. Why is that? How can brilliant scientists like David Suzuki be so aggressively ignored? What is the point of condemning as "tree-hugger nonsense" the expanding pile of facts and evidence that point to our own willful destruction of this planet?

The point is to have more stuff. To retain our right to consume voraciously, fill SUVs with gas, heat and power gigantic homes, watch more TV, play more video games, eat more junk, water and mow and medicate our lawns, play golf, and wear and drink brand names. This is why people vehemently oppose environmentalists. Consumerism is the American way. After Sept. 11, as long as you went out and spent your hard-earned paycheque on stuff, you were a good American. No one encouraged saving for college or giving to the poor or to science. It to be buying stuff. And those who rail against this system are often seen as "terrorists".

But where are all the rows and piles of identical things that don't get purchased coming from? Where do these unbought things go? Who physically needs all these items? Perhaps those who love the Earth and want to maintain its health view those who perpetuate this wasteful system as terrorists.

On November 28, 2992, viewers of the CNN television program Moneyline saw a "commercial" which proclaimed that "the average North American consumes five times more than a Mexican, ten times more than a Chinese person, and thirty times more than a person from India". It's not just hippies and radicals who know that consumption is killing the world. Now Canadian governments know it too, and are telling us. But it isn't just Ontario residents who should be conserving their power. It's all of us.