Oh, look at the mess we’re in now!

by Kris   ⋅   October 10, 2005   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

Okay, malicious tsunamis, hurricanes, record heat waves, now New Hampshire flooding, Pakistan earthquakes, a Guatemalan landslide and Brazilian drought.. do we need any more proof that Mother Nature is pissed off? Why won’t we heed her warnings?

Why won’t people admit that Global Warming is a reality and humans are to blame for the increased magnitude of most of these “freak” occurences? For example, the Louisiana flooding was a result of a temperature rise and sea-level rise in the Gulf. It’s not just about heat, either, it affects precipitation in even the coldest joint, Antartica, explaining the polar ice cap expansion. Yes, I said expansion. But you thought the ice caps were melting? They are. Confused yet? Just imagine how our ecosystem balancers feel.

I see more and more opposition to alternate means of energy for illogical reasons, i.e: solar roof panels in downtown Los Gatos because they are “ugly”. I was alarmed to hear that we are now importing more and more coal (mostly to PG&E, 27 million short tons last year), with our country’s coal export sales seriously shrinking. To refresh your memory, coal is the high pollutant (carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur, mercury) smog and acid-rain producing death nuggets. Sure, we rely on it to turn the steam-powered turbines in our massive energy plants, but why are we stuck with it? And what about car engines? I understand that hydrogen plants are risky and require mucho funding, but if you tally up all the inane tax dollar supplied “labwork” and “necessities” (i.e.: the infamous methane/cow fart experiment and the recent multi-million dollar Alaskan Airline paint job), I’m sure our government could spare a few bucks for this extremely dire cause.

With technology peaking in some arenas (there are 12,000 different kinds of toothbrushes and genetically enhanced corn flakes) why have we taken a huge step backwards as far as the environment and infrastructure are concerned?

What kind of a mess are we leaving for our children?

If you’re not the activist or petition signing type, just know that it helps to carpool or run the A/C less. Come on, let’s do it. Every little scrap of conservation counts. We shouldn’t rely on someone else to rescue us or new technology to arise soon. We can’t be passive about this. You know that, in the end, you’ll be the one to pay for it, and not only financially.

Illustration courtesy of Matt Hall and Simon Ng.

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