Stop Global Whining

That's a bumber sticker I saw yesterday and it started me thinking.

"Stop using those tree-killing paper bags" was the cry about 20 years ago when the best thing we could do to save the planet was to use those plastic bags AND recycle them. It sounds good but most people found it too inconvenient to find somewhere to recycle them so they ended up in the landfills. Yesterday, one of AOL’s headlines was about how mankind’s influence has literally reached every part of the world’s oceans and a big culprit is plastic! In the book “the World Without Us” plastic pollution of the environment was described in alarming detail and sea life, in particular, down to the microbial level was being affected. Unlike Global Warming, there is no doubt that this degradation of the earth’s environment is caused by the activities of humankind.

Have you ever contemplated on the fact that mankind, who likes to believe itself the center of the universe and the most intelligent creature ever created by God, somehow missed the quality that is instinctively incorporated into all the other earth life forms to be a part of the natural environmental process?

Yesterday, the question on Fox News was, “Is bottled water immoral?” They were trouncing the fact that the empty plastic bottles were showing up everywhere – especially the oceans. As with the plastic grocery bags the problem is not the bottle. It is the lack of awareness and/or caring about the effect on the planet. I don’t know if I will live long enough to see mankind discover a way to fit the lifestyle it desires into Natures environmental cycle.

I do know that the city in which I live has taken a step backwards in the process by ending its recycling program. I also know that I am now adding more plastic to the landfills because it is just too inconvenient and messy to try to gather up stuff and bring it to a collection center.(I’m not even sure there is a collection center.)

I guess my final contribution to the environment will also be negative. Instead of rotting and being broken down by worms, bugs and bacteria (returning myself to the Earth), I’m going out in a flash of cremation—adding my last bit of CO2 to the atmosphere. Maybe my contribution will help scientists determine if: 1) CO2 is really causing warming; 2) If mankind’s contribution is the cause of warming.

I don’t think I’ll live to see those questions answered either. The good part of that situation is I will only live to see the beginning of the taxes and government regulations that will be spawned by the politicians. The reason they are jumping on the bandwagon is simple—everything you do can be interpreted to affect the environment—and no one is opposed to green! No longer will they have to find some way to show a tax is good for children, or education. It is truly brilliant!

My idealistic generation was going to fix the world and not do things the way those stupid old people did it. It just ain’t that easy. The environment is complicated. Mankind is very complex. We like to think we are smart – after all we are warming the earth and we know it. Now we are going to fix it. We’re not going to do stupid things like those old people did.

(See what happens when I have nothing interesting enough to write about. By the way, no trees were injured in writing this blog. I did use electricity for the treadmill and computer so I guess I should figure out a way to reduce my carbon footprint. I know! I’ll write my blog on paper and mail it—h-m-m-m—that’s no good either. You know this computer has a lot of plastic in it. The treadmill does, too! Maybe the telephone is better. That’s plastic too and all those cables and poles… if I use the cell phone there are all those hazardous cell towers and microwaves…….HELP!)