Yes, my confusion is in spite of the idea of the plastic not biodegrading in a landfill or potentially ending up in the intestines of a dolphin or killer whale, or wrapped around the neck of a penguin. And my stance is also with consideration of the issue of the hydrocarbons used to create the plastic grocery bag, or fuel those diesel generators down at the old electrical substation, or especially the massive amounts of wasted energy and resources drained because of the need for and overuse of those ever-present and ubiquitous plastic drinking bottles.

Total waste of limited resources for a one-use item, eh? At least that's what we're supposed to believe as we're spoon-fed all those scientific facts and mathematical statistics and models and dire projections, right? Besides, after they're drained of their see-through contents those pesky little plastic buggers are always ending up in those landfills and will stay there intact way past our expiration dates on this physical plane, won't they? And, we use gazillions of them but don't even try to do our darndest to recycle every last one of them. This just adds insult to injury doesn't it?

~~SIDEBAR START~~
Let's put this in perspective, people.

See this picture of metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona?

Somewhere in this picture is Phoenix's brand spanking new municipal landfill. It's a few square miles in area and it's located southwest of the city. It's so BIG, four million people are supposed to be able to send their garbage there, for the next 30 years. Can you see it? I thought not. But it's there, and it's humongous.

Changes one's perspective on the scale of these 'recycling' complaints, doesn't it?
~~~SIDEBAR END~~~

It takes a finite amount of oil products to make one of those little flexible bags or see-through containers and then we just go and throw them away after using them ONCE. The thought of it keeps people from the local tree hugger and save-the-seals offices tossing and turning in their beds all night long. And darn it all to heck if we actually need 150 watts of electricity flowing through that 3-way upright incandescent light-bulb to read that Yeats, Shakespeare, or Darwinian tome late into the night.

But, facetiousness aside, what is this really all about?

Is it about the amount of finite carbon-based resources that we use in our lifetimes?

Is it about how much we drive our vehicles and the emissions that are spewed out of hundreds of millions of exhaust pipes every minute of every day from vehicles that don't depend upon renewable natural resources?

Is it about recycling every recyclable packing material we buy at the local supermarket and from Amazon.com?

Is the whole environmental movement about 'sustaining the environment' and 'protecting Mother Earth' and stopping 'global warming'?

Well, it could be about all of these, and it could be about none of these. So, how could it be about all of these?

Well, like any type of systemic sickness, it's about all the symptoms that are concomitant with the illness. And like any other issue of relevance to a problem, it's also about what is causing the problem.

But, me thinks we have swung the proverbial hammer and gone and missed the proverbial head of the nail with many of these dilemmas facing us humans and which are subsequently causing most to go to great lengths to fill their days with needless activities that really don't have any long-term positive outcome, overall, and with consideration of the original dilemma.

You might just about now be asking yourself what makes me so qualified to espouse such a morally turgid diatribe about the activities of so many focused environmental wannabes and do-gooders.

Well, to this I state: good question.

And to this I respond: I've been working in my career involving environmental compliance and keeping the many bosses I've worked for out of jail for both an international pipeline company in the private sector and in two levels of government in two countries for the past 22 years. Before this I obtained my university degree in environmental studies and a general knowledge of government legislation as it is applied through environmental legislation promulgated with the intention of protecting the environment, both the natural and the socio-economic ones.

Compound this with my application of 52 environmental regulatory criteria to over 10,000 separate projects undertaken by my employers from simple recycling resolutions, to projects requiring pipeline streaming crossing environmental assessments all the way up to housing projects costing in excess of $100 million U.S. and almost resulting in the preparation of formal environmental impact statements.

Suffice it to say, that I believe that with over a quarter century of involvement in the environmental field that I am somewhat qualified to tout the position that I am proffering here through my criticisms of others' actions and activities. But, even with consideration of these substantive 'qualifications' and in spite of my condemnatory attitude I relayed above, believe it or not, I am an avid supporter of each and every one of us doing everything that we can to reduce our ecological footprint while we exist as physical beings.

Okay, enough of that, let's get back to the matter at hand.

What is it that I'm trying to impart via this article? Well, I know that my wording is sometimes nebulous and hard to understand as I am usually prone to being too verbose with my written sharing. Nevertheless, I'm espousing that there are so many of us who think that we are doing all that we can on a grassroots level to protect ol' Mother Earth.

And we think that our efforts are worthwhile, morally right, and having a positive measurable impact on the environment. And, some of us even disdain those others who don't follow in our footsteps. But, let me share that I believe that the footprints that are left by those described herein are not much to follow.

Yes, I know that I'm being real hardcore here (and maybe even being a hard-a-s-s), but I want to try to have those who are influenced into realizing that all of those efforts they are undertaking really are not amounting to much effect, overall.

You see, there's one critical standpoint that I've lived by during the majority of my environmental career, and which is based upon the section of Michael Crichton's 'Jurassic Park' novel where he writes:

"...To the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and haven't got the humility to try. We have been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we are gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us...

...Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet--or to save it. But we might have the power to save our selves. "

Think about that. Deeply and at length. Go ahead, I'll wait....

I believe that this one statement summarizes the core of everything that makes this world, and our environmental dilemma, what it is.

The earth rotates around the sun once a year. The sun is spinning about the universe every I don't know how many years, and the Milky Way galaxy rotates around every several hundred million years. Space is living at a scale that we can't even wrap our teeny-tiny minds around.

And, yet, we're worried about recycling the plastic bag we just used to carry home the store baked batch of cookies and that fresh bottle of milk?

Come on people. Understand what needs to be done here. Focus on what matters.

We're not killing Mother Earth.

We're killing ourselves.

We're assassinating our race as a species.

We've already done a dandy job with thousands of other now-extinct species to-date. And now we're simply a little further down the line of extinction. Yet, this is totally preventable.

But what will it take to make this happen? Well, as this is a global Earth-bound issue, so is the level of tackling the problem required to be. We need to tackle this on a global scale, not via the neighborhood grocery store recycling program, turning off the lights when we leave a now empty room, or by buying toilet paper made out of recycled products. Things aren't going to get noticeably better that way. And what little they may be improved isn't going to affect change on a large enough scale.

We need to be approaching this from a very, very different perspective and effort. We need to be understanding that we are impacting the earth on a global scale, not just a local one. One's efforts on a personal scale are admirable at best, yet don't even compare to the degree of what is needed to bring the Earth back into a balance that will sustain us human creatures as we stamp out, albeit all over the place throughout terra-firma and atmospherically, our carbon footprint.

The level of effort and change needed is tremendous, and not cumulatively, but comprehensively. And it needs to occur on an enormously large scale through the human race to have any noticeable impact in the short or long run.

This isn't rocket science to know that drastic and dramatic efforts are needed if we are going to save our species.

Think about the thousands of acres of rainforest disappearing each day - all at the hands of man.

Think about the incalculable amount of hydrocarbons spewed from cars, factories, developing industrial countries, and even from the backend of the masses of domesticated animals we rely upon for our food products - all for the needs of man.

Think about humongous glaciers calving off areas of ice larger than small countries as an all too common occurrence nowadays - all because of the lifestyle of man.

Think about the fatal and incurable diseases that we are being BORN WITH, en-masse, throughout the world - all due to the past actions of man.

Think about the diseases we're unable to fight now with even the best technology - all because of the past artificial needs of man.

I really liked the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow.' Many thought it was alarmist, yet, I thought it was realistic even though it truncated WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW into only a few days. This movie showed that even though we are killing ourselves as a species -- and it's happening right in front of our eyes -- this still isn't going to be impactful enough to make us change on the scale needed to affect an impact of noticeable change on a global scale. This was reflected in the movie, as the political powers in charge simply believed that any actions were knee-jerk and instead didn't want to believe that any actions were necessary.

Regardless, is there another way out of this speciatal genocide we're moving towards in a somnambulistic trance except to let nature take its course with us over the next century or sooner? I don't think so. The level of effort needed by all of us, not just as individuals, but as a RACE is too much to address with consideration of the lifestyle and standard of living currently 'needed' by now billions of us. It's simply too much to swallow. It's indigestible.

In one of my university environmental microclimatology courses way back in the 1980's I was taught a case study involving placing fruit flies in a sealed container and continuing to have the same amount of sustenance for them to live off of for each generation. The study showed that as time went on the generations continued to live and then die and this process was repeated until a maximum level of one of the generations was reached, per the natural instructions of the species and with consideration of the available resources in the container. After that, every succeeding generation grew but always to a lower level from the one prior. This new diminishing sequence was repeated until there were no more generations of fruit flies in the sealed container, even though the resources were still available for sustenance.

Taking this back to the subject of this article and personalizing it to all of us humans: The Earth is the sealed container, and we're the fruit flies.

Ergo, the rhetorical and yet salient question is: Which generation are we at right now on the analogous generational scale I shared in this case study example?

Lastly, as written in Michael Crichton's quote, Nature has a way of taking care of herself. She doesn't need our cooperation, as we're here for the ride, and we're on her back. But I think she's getting tired of us hurting her, and is ready to kick us off, permanently.

So how to solve this global environmental crisis we've created? Change how we relate to and exist in this physical environment and living, breathing world. But not individually, not as a country, not even as a nation, but - as a species. Period.

Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'

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