Climate Change and Planetary Health

• When I see ads on TV for cars and trucks emphasizing speed and horsepower, I know we're not yet taking Climate Change seriously enough.

• When I see ads for prescription drugs, the residue of which has now been detected in our streams and oceans, I know we're not taking the health of our planet seriously enough.

• When I see news stories about how conventional food has almost the same nutrition as organic food, I know we're not taking the health of our planet seriously enough.

These things are evidence of a much too human-centric attitude in our culture. Democracy is great for human beings, but as the creatures and plants of the forests & streams and oceans cannot vote, we can use our great gift of Democracy and free market to ride roughshod over them all. Hey, it IS all about us, right? After all, if we kill off enough wildlife, we die with it. The bacteria and cockroaches will likely far out live us.

I know that at every moment, each of us is doing the best we can, but it still saddens me that we are still not seeing ourselves as an integral part of nature.

There are three basic reasons we're having trouble with this, I think:

1. Over population of the planet is a relatively recent phenomenon. Natural resources seemed inexhaustible until very recently. Old habits die hard.

2. Out of sight, out of mind. When you can go to the super market and just pick things off the shelves without knowing how they got there, you forget the impact you're having on the planet by having that product made for you and delivered to that shelf, just so you can grab it and head for the check out counter.

3. Power corrupts. Human beings have enough power to destroy the planet in hundreds of ways, from the very quick (nuclear weapons) to the painfully slow (spread of toxins and climate change compounds, destruction of habitat for other species). As it is easy to flip on a light with a switch, flush a toilet and have the waste literally disappear, turn a key and drive a car within an instant, it's easy to just 'take power' to get our needs and desires met. We have become used to our "standard of living" and expect it to continue indefinitely.

OK, climate change has suddenly become popular as a topic. And I'm heartened. Thanks to Al Gore for really getting it out there. But don't run around feeling good just yet. Putting up solar panels and windmills and yearning for the electric car is just the bare beginning. There are hundreds of waste products, from mining, farming, manufacturing, transportation, etc., that are all choking nature, driving species extinct, etc. We have a lot of work to do. Boy do we! The future is here. You will not be bored.

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