Talking Versus Doing

I am really not trying to get on a soapbox these past few blogs but even when I read them after I write them they sometimes come off that way, even to me.

In the past two years I have traveled to Myanmar, Japan and Okinawa, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, El Salvador, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Colombia, and have had visitors to our Texas site from Argentina, Canada, and met with influential people from Ecuador, Peru and even Mexico.

And sadly all of these high end meetings and very ego boosting trips have only reinforced my views that I developed during my investigations days watching people exploit and kill and take and rape animals and the earth for their own desires and greed. 

With two exceptions. 

I cannot comment yet, but two governments, two visitors, two of the most unlikely countries on earth "got it". 

They saw and embraced what we at GBT have been trying to do for over 12 years. (Actually we have been at this almost 15 years, now). 

I knew by the time I was 30 years old you cannot expect any cures or "fixes" from governments. Governments at best, are administrators. They are today, comprised largely of politicians. 

They are few if any "leaders". 

Leaders and leadership are perhaps the most endangered species and attributes on the earth.

A leader looks to the problems and threats facing a nation or society or the world and seeks solutions and fixes and tries to make things "right". Churchill was a leader. Mandela was a leader. Marcus Aurelius was a leader.

Politicians however, look backwards away from the problems and pains afflicting society and nations and the world and try and ascertain where their support base wishes them to go. That way they can be assured of keeping the perks and powers of privilege that they covet so desperately. 

The things that make them feel they are better than the rest of us.

And of course the earth suffers.

I know by 1994 you could not look to the Non-Governmental Groups, the NGO's, or the quasi-governmental groups like the World Bank or the United Nations. They are just businesses run under a different banner but the individual greed and hubris and fear of lost position or lost benefits infects them as surely as it does those politicians in governments. NGO's and all, exist to expose, sensationalize, raise the alarm and moist importantly raise money.

As a former mentor high up in the NGO world once said, " David people do not send a $25.00 check when the whales are doing OK". 

And the earth suffers. 

In 1992 not long after the Rio Convention I started to think about the idea of "ethical capitalism". Making a profit is important, make no doubt about it. But I started asking myself, " Is that the sole end of everything we do on this earth that defines success". Of course, we all know it is not.

The real question then began to formulate in my brain. Can you make money, be successful, and be profitable, and not only "not" harm the earth but can you do so helping it. 

And no, I am not talking about NGO's whose business is getting you to send money in the belief they will somehow use your money to make the earth safer, better, more secure. Any hope or belief I had in that system sailed long ago over the edge of the earth into oblivion. 

No, the question that has driven me almost to the point of insanity 
(no giggles or comments like " too late" will be ignored) is can you produce something the earth desperately needs and make the area and the earth better for it and can you do so at a profit and doing it the "right" (meaning moral) way.

Today everyone from Putin to Obama to Ron Paul to Hillary to, ..... well, you get my drift, talks about making the world better but no one does it.

I think GBT is close. I think in 60 days or less we will produce a healthy, sustainable, source of seafood, the "right" (read moral) way and we will do it in a system that improves the site and the area and the environment where we started. And I think, I am not certain, but I think we may have a system that when fully integrated may be able to do this around the world. 

Now if I am right, won't that be "doing" not just "talking"?

And the earth will "benefit". 

Again, as I often say, "how cool is that"?