Weeks back the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, made an important distinction between climate change and pollution, thus directing a harsher narrative. Sure, the Earth goes through all kinds of developments over a lifetime and we cannot relate to but chronicle it to our best ability. Most records of weather are solid from 1850 to present but this is a spec on a lifetime of 4.5 billion years or, even 6,000. Living in Florida 2004 saw 4 major hurricanes pound the peninsula, as pick-up trucks cruised my neighborhood bull horning evacuation. As a realtor I was accustomed to some deals only being insured by government backed entities due to flood zones. But two of the storms were hitting the Atlantic and Gulf simultaneously that summer.
Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s the narrative was on the Amazon’s deforestation but I haven’t heard about it much since. Why? We stopped chopping pasture for cattle, crops, and fuel. At it’s peak in 1980 150 hectares (half the size of India) were harvested that decade but decreased to 78 in the 90’s, 52 in the 2000’s, and 47 hectares this past decade. The Amazon rain forest is about the size of the lower 48 and so consumes the carbon dioxide we need recycled. I suppose that ad campaign resonated with the public. So how can a reboot change the ways of consumers to ensure a homeostasis?
Pollution sounds gross, ugly, and unsavory; climate change sounds natural and the deniers hold clout. Personally, I prefer the argument that John McCain gave. I’m summarizing but he’s like, “Hey if we can do what’s right and help the planet, still make money, and leave a better place than we found; then we should.” To watch a documentary and see the plastic island in the Pacific Ocean, the size of Texas, makes me cringe as a consumer. A throw away society has emerged due to cheap goods to fulfill the demands of the public. The unbalance will not hold and if humanity thinks it will kill the Earth, it’s sadly mistaken.
This planet has always been unstable. It’s hit by space debris daily, burns forests that cloud sky’s hundreds of miles away, spins 1,000 mph, as it’s bombarded from sunspots; oh and 115 million cars burn gas and rubber on its roads everyday in America. Today’s minds are reporting a 1.2-degree change and the threshold, as reported years earlier, was 1.5, we are in the squared circle. The extinction of the dinosaurs should make us heed but we feel superior to both. This needs to be reversed.
How can one person make a difference on an organic spaceship that is almost 4,000 miles at its radius, 93 million miles from the sun, with a population of almost 8 billion humans, 8.7 million different species of animals, and 80% of life made up of 320,000 plant breeds? I gather the only way is to acknowledge the Earth as our home. Treating it with the respect of a superior being and being thankful she allows us to live on the surface as it core heats to 9,000 degrees. But this hardly registers as top mind awareness, instead we tussle over carbon taxers, drillers, energy independence, and economic consequences. A world of lack when she provides everything.
Recycling is declining and even what we export a portion of it is burnt. Contamination and consumption are key contributing factors. Waste that you think will be recycled has a gloss on it and cannot be reused. Plastic water bottles are the scrouge of a ‘healthy’ American society. Once I switched to the 2.5-gallon spring water, drinking from a glass, I realized I was intaking more H2O, and not producing as much waste, pollution. It was the least I could do and it helped me in the process.
Littering is over consumption and unnecessary. When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, the mantra was, “Carry in, carry out.” If you can bear it, then please do. If one can’t grasp the whole, it’s too much, let go; it doesn’t mean you live in lack, the Earth has been supporting you since day one. But the accumulation of material defines one’s self-worth in a status of a society that has lost its way. Change is uncomfortable and violent at times. Think of how Yellowstone burned in 1988 but this gave way to spruce reproduction busting the cones to seedlings and yielding a new beginning.
Instead of siding with a stance of left or right, stand straight with what has always been before our time and will be after. Sure, corporations, hands tied with governments are engaging in crimes against the planet, our home team, but we can vote them down with our pocketbook. If we take an example from Birmingham, AL and the bus boycott, change can be enacted but we have to really feel threatened.
How many days over 110 degrees in Phoenix, hurricanes flattening and flooding Texas, Florida, and fires burning in Canada causing Armageddon views in NYC, will it take for us to say enough? Until you specifically are disrupted, I suppose. Little things that a consumer decides to adhere to will have the most buildup. For me, I need to get tote bags for my groceries like when I was in Florence. I simply don’t believe that the plastic bags I recycle make a difference. And if I’m wrong, I still shopped, spent, helped people have jobs and produce; while not stepping on Gaia. So win-win Johnny.
We all go through up’s and downs but even when we are low, we know what is right and wrong; it’s just if we care enough to have it be at the forefront. That we hold a power that counts instead of letting emotion tell us to ‘fuck it,’ who am I? Pollution penetrates like when one uses the word ‘hate.’ The unpalatable taste of the deterioration of our homeland is distasteful. Makes me think of when a cop said, “Fucked up car, Fucked up life.” We can do better.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for, we are the change we seek.” Obama.
