Earth Day is really annoying me this year. I am amazed by all the companies jumping on the green bandwagon and doing their part for the environment by selling one organic product among a long line of things made in China. We have a serious problem and it won't be solved by turning the thermometer down a degree in the winter or buying a rechargeable battery.
For a long time, the population has been growing and our entire economy has based on this growth and increased consumption. We take millions of years of stored energy and expend it at ever increasing speeds. We're reaching the end. There's no more room, there's not much more fossil fuel energy, and we're changing the earth to a point that it will no longer be able to support us. So what happens now?
As people give tips on consuming less energy, no one points out that if we all do go ahead and make the changes necessary to reverse the effects of global warming or at least delay it, our economy, based on rapid consuming, will collapse. But as awful as that may be, at least it's a choice we can make and a consequence we can live through. If we don't make that change, our future may be decided for us and it may be even worse. I'm fairly confident that after all this there will still be people on Earth, but I'm guessing there will be much fewer and life will be forever changed.
As Chris notes, environmentalism is not about the earth; it's about us on the earth and our ability to continue living on the earth. Everyone's saying we need to do something, but no one seems to actually be doing anything about it. And what we are doing, myself included, seems to be too little, too late. I'm not optimistic about the future. The food shortages have already started. I hope I'm very wrong.
*sigh* depressing.
Posted by: Elena | May 01, 2008 at 06:46 PM