In a recent conversation about Shell Oil undertaking exploration off the coast of South Africa I listened to my friend speak about environmental degradation, spoiling tourist spots, greed, pollution and how it was unacceptable to have big oil on your doorstep. As she continued talking about the concerns I could not help but think to myself the oil exploration is because of us! The pollution in the seas is because of us! The poisons in the air is caused by … us. No one else. No other creature on the planet has caused the environmental degradation that faces us, and them. The future is bleak solely because all of us have watched documentaries , read headlines, bemoaned the effects of cars etc on our beautiful world and then … driven to the garage to put petrol in our cars, gone on flights without a thought of the impact, bought endless items triple wrapped in plastic, poured chemicals down our drains, turned on heaters, dryers, lights, kettles, stoves … all with a nod and a blinking thought for the damage we are doing to the environmental that we live in.
I am one of the ‘us’ and I am as much to blame as are millions of others. I try. I try to reduce my carbon footprint. My pantry floor has plastic bags ready for recycling. I use the least toxic chemicals for cleaning, vinegar is a great soldier in the battle, but I still use some chemicals. I … I … am trying but it not enough for me, and you, and thousands of others to try alone in our households. It is time to raise our voices to our representatives. Everything about how we live in many nations is wrong.
Listening to a podcast a few weeks ago I was shocked to learn that the chemicals used in artificial fragrances has been found in almost all the fish tested for its presence. We are eating our own poisons, whist doing irrefutable harm to our planet. We talk about space travel and exploration as if it holds all the answers yet fail to undertake the difficult tasks that have to be doneto keep the only planet truly capable of supporting future generation alive and well.
Just pause a moment and consider the difficulties of sustaining life on Mars. The number of people it could potentially support is not millions. It is not even hundreds of thousands. It is not a solution to the future our children and their children’s children will be forced to confront. Maybe Bizos, Musk, and the billionaires see it as a future for their descendants but for my descendants I think a version of the world depicted in the bleak futuristic movies is far more likely.
So what can I do? In relation to the majority of the billions of people on earth I am extremely fortunate. Clean water, fresh food, warmth in winter, medical services … the list is long as to my blessings. I can not ask the homeless, the poverty stricken to take action. Their voices have been silenced by their circumstances and are generally ignored. My choices are to keep doing the basic things I am doing and add the following:
Demand change to laws; demand companies change packing, recycle more, use less plastic, ask more of us as consumers so that the trip to a grocery store entails taking reusable containers for meat products, vegetables, glass milk bottles, reduce packing on EVERYTHING, take plastic out of the environment as much as is possible. Write to representatives, protest, use our money to force change! Reduce our consumption of products from producers who refuse to change.
There is no time left for prayers, thoughts, wishes, dreams of a better world, If PG Tea can stop using cellophane on their boxes of tea bag and remove all plastic from the product so that the waste is biodegradable then so can Twininga et al. We can not nod, sympathize, watch documentaries on the extinction of trees, plants, fish, animals and so much more without understanding that we to are faced with extinction. Unlike the other creatures we can, and must, do much, much more today and every day in the future.
If we do not then anyone living on Mars will not have a mother ship to which they can return.
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