The Problem

I am going to talk now about what the problem is before I talk about a solution. If you are reading this you are meant to read it. This means you are part of the problem as well as the solution. 


If you are not willing to consider the possibility that you are both the problem and the solution, then you might as well stop reading. I can not work with everyone, so the people I work with must really count.


The world is in a really big mess because of people. We had a perfectly good planet and we have really messed it up. Human behavior must be changed soon or we will kill ourselves off. We have wreaked such destruction on the Earth that we are in immediate danger of  making it unable to support human life any longer. 


I have talked about how messed up the Earth is quite a bit in earlier posts so I don't want to repeat it all here in one post. I will hit the highlights however.


We have changed the weather patterns of the whole earth. Record highs and lows for weather are being constantly set all over the world. We are getting more forest fires than ever and they are bigger.
We are getting more storms, bigger storms and they are doing more damage.
This is true for tornadoes, hurricanes and regular storms. 


We are polluting the whole planet. The extent of our pollution is rivaled only by the variety of things we pollute with.


If you have ever stood on an ocean shore and looked toward the horizon and seen nothing but blue water meeting blue sky,  you know how big the oceans are compared to a human being. 


We have nevertheless managed to pollute the oceans. We will soon make it impossible for much life to survive in the oceans because of how we have polluted them, and continue to do so. Many cities have pumping their sewage into the ocean as their only disposal plan. Of course some cities bless their sewage by running it through a filter before they spew it into the ocean, but it is only a small bandage on a gaping wound.


We have polluted the air. Some cities are now so toxic that alerts must be declared for it on particularly bad days. People who have respiratory problems, children, or elderly are warned not to go outdoors or do so as little as possible on air alert days. People who live long term in cities like this have shorter lives than people who live in places with better air. You can search this for yourself if you want, or ask your insurance agent or doctor.


This matters even if you don't live in one of these cities. Air does not stay in one place. Air pollution is spreading and you will get it too at the rate we are going.


Trees in national forests in the USA are being affected by pollution that comes from distant cities. Acid rain, is falling in places that do not even pollute that much, but the acid rain does not stay over the places the pollution came from.


Nuclear wastes are polluting more and more areas and will continue to do so for so many generations that no language has ever survived that long. We will have a hard time finding a way to tell all of the people who must deal with the nuclear wastes, what they must do to be safe from it.


We have caused or encouraged changes in disease organisms so that we are running out of medical solutions for them. We are falling behind in the race between new vaccines and antibiotics and cleaning materials that leave us alive and kill the disease organisms. 


We are using up natural resources faster than we can rip apart the planet to get to them. We are just beginning the wars that can come over the resources that are too few for the number of people who want to use them.


We have been making bigger and better weapons so that we are now able to make it difficult for life to survive their use. We have been damaging the planet by testing these weapons regardless of the many generations of consequences that must be faced because of it.


We have separated humans from the planet and the intricate and interdependent and interconnected web of nature that we depend on to stay alive. 


We have done this so much, that many people now do not understand that they must have other forms of life in existence, to allow us to continue to live.


We must change if we are to survive. 


I wish to begin writing about a solution in tomorrow's post.