Lets be honest, Earth day is a polarizing day in the political scheme of things. It seems as if the progressive/liberals/democrat side of the aisle tends to be a bit more environmental than those on the other side. So much so that they would value the life of plants and four legged animals over humans. Those on the conservative/tea party/republican side of the aisle, seem to think that they own the earth and everything in and on it.
I am here to not-so-humbly offer that both sides are wrong. Dead wrong (pun intended).
Both of these sides will lead to the destruction of our species here on planet earth. If you haven’t noticed we are destroying our planet. Since industrialization started taking place, our population as a species has also increased dramatically, due to advances in our living conditions and particularly in our medical practices. This means that those in industrialized nations are living longer, and therefore having a more dramatic impact upon the earth. What is happening is that, at dramatic rates, we are using up resources and not replenishing them. Add to that, those of us here in the United States, and other industrialized nations like us, have vast amounts of waste that we “throw away”. To accent this importance of this action, I ask you, “Where is away?”. When you throw the garbage out it is not away, it is simply somewhere else on this big rock we call earth. Also when you flush your toilet and it goes “away”, again I ask you “Where is away?”. In our small community here in Kentucky it is almost unconsciousable to me that the place in which we derive our main source of water is only a short piece via water ways from the place in which our “cleansed” sewage treatment is also dumped. Are we that stupid? The answer is yes.
To all my Christian friends and family out there. I love you, and am too a Christian. You seem to read Genesis 1:28-30 and focus in on the “have dominion over” section of it and forego the “replenish” portion of it. Replenish means to take something and then basically use it and then find a way to make more of it. We are not doing that at all, particularly when it comes to fossil fuels that motor us from one place to the other. If you are bible-believing Christian and you take one (dominion) with out the other (replenish), you get what we currently have. That is land that we think we own. We do not own the land, we are borrowing it until someone else either buys it or takes it from us. We put up fences because it is “ours”. I get that for privacy and livestock issues. However what I do not get is that we think what we do over here on our side of the fence does not effect the guy/gal next to us.
That goes for our federal government as well. I am not saying that either side of the Bundy Ranch fiasco is perfectly correct. However if you are keeping a cattle farmer from grazing cattle because of fees unpaid, or a turtle, then you are part of the problem. Those cattle ranchers, corn, soybean and wheat farmers are the same ones that are feeding THE WORLD folks. Figure out a better way to work with those folks, if they go away then we will all starve right along with the non-industrialized and/or agriculturally proficient nations in which we feed.
Climate change….wow, really? I think there is more that is not known about climate change than is. However a redneck hillbilly like me can tell you with certainty that we are negatively impacting our environment and our climate daily. Don’t believe me? Then go suck on a tail pipe while a car is running and tell me what your thoughts are after a few minutes. We are daily putting toxins into our environment which are killing us, destroying the air we breath, and killing the plants that create the oxygen we need to live. Again, I am a trained statistical analyst, therefore I look at numbers when it comes to the climate. I think these weather patterns of heat and cold are cyclical over hundreds and thousands of years. So I therefore think that some things are inevitable no matter what we do. With that said, lets not do more harm than good when it comes to the environment. Remember that whole “replenish” the Earth thing we mentioned above.
For all of my friends who are tree-hugging, nature loving activists out there. I am with you, I love you for what you do. But you are also kinda nuts…just sayin. Really, we as the human species are symbiotic with plants and animals and not less important. So I have a “Don’t believe me?” for you too. If you believe that a turtle or a salamander or a tree species is more important than human life. Then please gather yourselves together enmasse and commit suicide. If you are correct and true then about half of the population here in the states will no longer be around when you are gone. With more resources for the rest of us to utilize we will no longer have need to even remotely get close to trampling on these resources. That is ridiculous isn’t it? I will tell you right now, your life is more important than that of a salamander.
It is because human life, while being symbiotic with nature, is also a tad bit more important. We are sentient beings and by so doing we are miraculous. We have the ability to positively effect our environnment TODAY. Nature has a way of correcting itself, but typically it takes long periods of time to do so. We as humans have the ability to effect our environment today, right now, this very moment. Lets get to positively effecting it rather than negatively effecting it.
Come on, join in, let’s learn together!
PS. I can’t stand it, i have to say it. QUIT POISONING YOUR YARDS! Go the grocery store and buy some spring mix. Lay it out on your dinner table, then go out to your yard and pick up as many “weeds” as you can, now go lay them next to the stuff you just bought at the store. You will find that they are very similar …so quit poisoning your yard and our water table by dumping pesticides on it.
PSS. Quit blowing the tops off mountains away as a means of developing electricity. Find safer, and more ecologically means to do so. Wind farms aren’t it. We need ALOT more electricity than they can provide. But lets work more closely with the coal companies and offer them incentives to invest their profits in alternative fuel sources. They have the profits, they are businessmen and women who know how to make a buck…let’s do what we can to help them make more money that can be invested in safer ways and that can also invest in the local communities. Sorry I do not have answers to this problem.
PSSS. Monsanto is evil….ok, ok I am done. Have a great day!
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