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The waste dump, a result of unbridled consumerism
(Photo Credit:
Shutterstock; Copyright: Public Domain)
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An uninhabitable earth
at some point in our future is not an unreasonable thought. Years of disregard
for mother earth can cause components of the earth system to change. Consequently, humankind should not shrug
off warnings of cataclysmic environmental
transformations.
And, for those who think that climate change warnings are
just hullabaloo and pooh-pooh the idea of an impending catastrophe, I have one
question, what if you’re wrong? What harm can come from taking meaningful
action now rather than wait until it’s too late.
That’s why events such as the Climate Summit 2014 are
important. The summit’s purpose is to drum up enough political will for meaningful
legal agreements on climate change by 2015.
And, that’s why the People’s Climate March on
September 21 in support of the summit is also important. The march’s purpose is
to demand the world’s leaders not to substitute words for action, but to take
action now.
The other day, I was watching the movie “Wall-E” with my
grandson. In the movie, by the year 2105 planet earth was no longer habitable.
Disregard for mother earth had caused massive changes in weather patterns,
failures in earth's ecosystem, and the air became too toxic to sustain life. Earth's
inhabitants abandoned her, leaving in luxury starliners to roam deep space for
eternity.
What created earth’s demise in “Wall-E” was unbridled
consumerism. It’s a portrait of our very same consumer-driven
economy, one that creates an “endless demand for more things,” a system that
promotes debt, destruction, and waste for the sake of profit over the wellbeing
of people.
The impact of human pollution on the inner workings of
earth's delicate and complex system may be debatable short-term. But without
regulatory protections and changes in human behavior, a time will come when
planet earth may no longer be habitable. It’s not something, once it happens,
that can be retroactively corrected by congressional action. It's an issue that
must be dealt with proactively by all of us.
There is no doubt, without a change in thinking about air pollution,
consumerism, how we dispose of waste, and other factors affecting the
environment, our world might someday be in the same predicament as portrayed in
“Wall-E.” Perhaps not by 2105, but at some point, if action is not taken to
reverse the trend, we will have destroyed the place we call home.
(A version of this
article was first published on the Yahoo Contributors Network on August 2,
2011)
Copyright © 2014 Horatio Green
