Climate Change: Sure, But…
We focus on climate change, but there is an elephant in the room that is often strangely missing from the discussions relating to the health of our planet.
We are cutting down forests at an alarming rate. The ocean acidity is increasing and jeopardizing ocean ecosystems. The ocean is also being filled with trash, mostly plastics. Species are going extinct at an alarming rate due to pollution and habitat loss. Gross overuse of pesticides and polluting resource extraction of many kinds have put crucial aquifiers at risk of serious contamination. The availability of clean potable water is decreasing at an alarming rate world-wide, and people cannot live without water. We keep generating large quantities of spent nuclear material without any clear plan of how to safely dispose of it. We are killing off crucial species like bees, corals and plankton. And the list goes on. The ever-rising world population means an increasing pressure for continuing on this path of planetary suicide.
Of course climate change is a major problem facing us today, but it is only one of a series of interconnected environmental disasters currently taking place. While the devotees of short-term profits can manufacture and promote false uncertainties regarding climate change, the other problems mentioned above are beyond debate. Those advocating for a change in the way we interact with the only planet available to us for the foreseeable future might have more success if the focus was on the full spectrum of assaults on the environment.
Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine the human species collectively agreeing upon and following a more rational and sustainable path. Anyone who is familiar with modern science and has a basic knowledge of the well-tested laws of nature can confidently predict that our current path leads to several possible ends, all of them bad. At present there is not much justification for optimism, but the majority of Earth’s inhabitants understand their stake, and that of generations to come, in the health of the planet. If they get off their asses and start voting for a change, then a change is going to come. It may be a slow struggle back to sanity, but it is possible.