Seeing Consumption and Waste

With Earth Day upcoming, and the recent report by many of the world's scientists reporting that the potential negative impacts of the effects of climate change could be far more extreme than they even imagined, you would think that we would try to limit the extent of our own detrimental effect on the environment.

Some people, obviously, don't agree. Exxon made clear that they are among those who, for all intents and purposes, do not want to hear it, because it is an inconvenient truth that threatens their bottom line of raking in the profits.

Many feel that we humans are simply too insignificant to truly have such a huge impact, even though the evidence is pretty overwhelming that, in fact, we are having an enormously detrimental impact on the environment. After all, it's hard to actually see it, so it's hard to prove it beyond any doubts. Some people truly believe that the world's scientists are in on some huge kind of scam, that all of this talk of global warming is just one huge conspiracy of some sort.

Of course, they do not seem to see, or care, that many of the rest of us see big corporate money heavily investing in climate change denial as a sort of conspiracy in it's own right, but never mind that.

Fact of the matter is, everything that we do, and every choice that we make is a gamble of some sort. We make choices, and we at some point commit to that choice, which means we have eliminated the possibility of any other choice. That is how our society has worked, largely, for as long as human history has existed, this kind of all or nothing approach.

The problem with that is, simply, that too often, we dig ourselves in, surround ourselves with ideological trenches of some sort or other, and seem willing to fight to the death to preserve our sense of being right, of not having wasted our lives on something that was clearly wrong.

And this issue seems to be the pinnacle of that. This society takes a lot of risks. We had an arms race, with the highest of all possible stakes. We knew that the risks were enormous - potential nuclear apocalypse - ad yet we continued on, not heeding the risks.

We are now doing the same in regards to the environment. It's all or nothing. Our free market capitalist system works, right? That means, profits come first over everything else -  especially in America. Here, we believe in that system so much, that even our health is a gamble. Prices are so high for medical coverage and procedures, that some of us simply cannot afford it. We are told that a majority of Americans want some real health care reform, that affordable, universal health care is desirable. Yet, it never seems to quite pan out, does it?

Same with environmental regulations. It's a gamble. Either we are right, and this is just some big scam, or we are wrong, and the price will be enormous. TO ourselves, perhaps, but to all future generations, and what kind of legacy is that to leave the rest of humanity to come?

But we seem to be digging ourselves into the trenches of our own making, and pretty soon, there won't be any turning back. Pretty soon, the gamble will be all or nothing. And in that case, we have to hope and prayer that scientists and others concerned about environmental degradation really are wrong. Because if there is even a slight possibility that the well over 97% of the scientific community is right, and that those corporate interests sponsoring anti-environmental messages so that they can continue raking in their dirty profits are wrong?

Well, then, how stupid would we be then?

The extent of out impact may not always be easy to see, but that is especially difficult if we do not want to see it, and so choose not to see it. But the impact is real, and the impact is horrendous. We already know that humans are not so insignificant as to have made a huge impact, because we all knew that what would happen in the event of a nuclear war would be a vastly different, probably uninhabitable planet. Plus, we can see the lights of our cities from space, and the landscapes have already been greatly changed because of human development.

So, we are having a definite impact. We need only open our eyes to see it.

And here is a link that shows the tragedy of it all, and just how wasteful we have become. The pictures that you are about to see, if you choose to click on the link below, show what no one wants to see, but what we must see, to arrive at some fundamental truth about our present activities on this planet, and just how detrimental and unsustainable our present way of life really is.

Please take a look.


"10 Shocking Photos That Will Change How You See Consumption And Waste The Huffington Post" by Priscilla Frank, March 29, 2014:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/29/chris-jordan_n_5035897.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000010