IT'S NOW OR NEVER

IT'S NOW OR NEVER

Have any of you noticed lately that the frequency and intensity of natural disasters has been increasing steadily for the last decade and longer. If you add up the recent onslaught of deadly tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes combined with man made crisis’ like the oil spills in the gulf and the nuclear plant failure following the tsunami in Japan to name a few recent disasters,  the evidence seems irrefutable. It also gives some credence to the idea that the earth itself has it’s own “balancing” system and when that system is threatened, it fights back for it’s own survival. And if that means getting rid of the species responsible, well-so be it.

There is a lot of scientific research and evidence that’s predicts, explains and cautions us, and there is also the intuitive, gut wrenching, perhaps mystical perspective that advocates the belief in the Gaia Principle which describes the earth as a whole living organism. Many scientists have been attempting to inform us that we need to heed the effects of our way of living, for years now but they have been ridiculed (alarmists doom and gloom) discredited and ignored  by administrations and their hired media, resulting in the majority of us ignoring the writing on the wall and carrying on the business of our lives as usual.  Since our natural tendency is to resist change and remain comfortable and complacent it doesn’t take much to convince or reassure us that everything is A-OK when it fact it is not.

  

 As individuals the many cancers and other diseases we suffer from are treatable, even curable if detected early enough. I think the same principle applies to the entire global ecosystem and all it’s intricate interconnections. And if this is the case then a slow and gradual reduction of air, ground and water pollution. Oil fuels dependency, token penalties and unenforced regulations of industries and the tons of toxic wastes they spew into the environment daily will be a case of “too little, too late”.  Goals like 20% reduction of energy reliance on oil by the year 2030 isn’t going to reverse the inertia of what appears to me to be an unacknowledged catastrophe of epic proportions no longer waiting just around the corner but smack in our faces, at least to those of us whose faces are no longer buried, heads in the sand. It is very possible that we are past the point of no return. 

The same sort of shortsighted self centered compulsion for more, better, newer, faster that led to the current global economic melt down is leading us to the end of the world as we know it. We can no longer live the A-More-I-Can Dream if we want to have a future worth dreaming. It is time, it is past time to sound the alarm. 

The world itself will renew itself; only humans have been able to impact nature intensely enough to change climates and pollute and over consume natural resources. With our extinction, systems will work to bring a return to homeostasis. Ironically, it is the so called “developed countries” that have wreaked havoc on the earth; it has taken great advances in technologies to do this much damage in such a short span of time. The past 100 years have changed the way we live in extreme ways only science fiction writers could imagine. 

The freedom guaranteed us by the constitution to the “pursuit of happiness” has literally manifested. We are lost in the “pursuit” and few of us have arrived at the intended target of happiness. The vast number of drugs we of the “developed” countries have to devour in order to simply cope with our pain, exhaustion, depression and great disillusionment attests to the fact that material wealth and external comforts do not bring us health, security and serenity. We are enslaved by the very luxuries that once obtained can no longer be lived without. We are captive to the artificial “needs” promulgated by ceaseless commercial marketing. Research has found measurements of personal contentment higher among people who are living remotely and in the harshest of climates than here in  Disneyland which we tout in yet another commercial as the “happiest place on earth”. If you’ve been to Main Street then you know the best part of the day is sitting down and resting your weary feet.

The rate of speed at which we are depleting or poisoning the few essential elements that sustain life for us all does not allow us the luxury of the slow, passive gestures we are making to fix the enormity of the real issues of the day. 

You may call me an alarmist, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day (soon!) you will join us, so the world can continue to go on.

“Imagine” that. Thank you John-