Its Coming

by Norma Holt
italk4u.com

Everyday now there is something about climate change in the news. Mostly it concerns the abnormal weather patterns with massive floods, fires, drought, and winds devastating countries, ripping down homes, killing hundreds in their wake, and causing havoc and massive property losses. The ice caps are melting and low lying land masses are going under, but it won't stop there. Mud slides bury entire towns and extremes of temperature are killing thousands.

The consequences are grave and there is no salvation. For anything to be reversed it would involve sacrifice of the very things humans depend on for their income. It would also require politicians to betray big business and that may cost them an election.

Man invented money as a convenient trade tool but it has got completely out of hand. Now the goal is to make money at any cost and that includes the environment. As he rips out the heart of jungles, destroys ocean life, drives species of animals and plants to extinction, and pollutes his food and water with poisonous substances, the question is 'where is the logic in it.'

Can anything be done to stop it? How much time is there left?

As we cannot eat, breath or drink money what is the future for the super rich millionaires and billionaires who don't know where or when to stop? They are in the same sinking ship as the poor victims they have created through their greed, as are their children. It does not matter who or where they are their money ultimately is derived from the environment in one form or another.

As some grow extraordinarily rich and become god-like examples for others to follow we are racing towards the end of the planet as we know it. When it is no longer able to preserve or maintain life all will be gone, that includes you and me.

Wealth is a trade-off as the only way to acquire it is through the environment. Sources of wealth include minerals, forests, trees, drugs, transport, tourism, agriculture, fishing, tourism, industries born of and supported by these things, and so on. Every one of them takes a toll on the environment and depletes the planet as the population of increases to a point where it is fast becoming unsustainable.

Yet religious groups encourage large families and one in particular opposes safe sex practices. Sexually Transmitted Diseases are rife in many countries but the population still grows. Why is alright to kill by a STD than to abort an unborn embryo or prevent its conception in the first place? Can you see logic in this?

Many will argue that they are not responsible for what is happening, but they live in the moment. If you depend on money for anything at all, including food, you are a contributor to environmental degradation. Do you travel by anything that uses fuel, that crosses the landscape where clearing and buildings have replaced nature? Do you fish in a motor powered vehicle, do you use a net, a gun, or any other form of manufactures weapon to catch prey? The energy used to make it came from the environment.

For industry to flourish energy from some form of carbon producing resource is essential. The sight of belching smoke filling the atmosphere day after day is appalling, but who can stop it? Only so much carbon is removed by the dwindling forests, the lungs of the earth and producers of oxygen, rain and, to a degree, lower temperatures. They also produce food for thousands of species of flora and fauna, now fast disappearing. As oxygen levels plummet and food dwindles there is a time limit for human survival.

Man is killing the only home he has, he is poisoning his food and the water that is essential to his life, and he is willfully killing off everyone and everything else on the planet.

We think of terrorists as those who kill off a few people at a time but people engaged in such destruction will kill us all. And why? They are doing it for money.

So who are the greater terrorists. What mankind is doing now makes us responsible for more deaths and destruction than all the wars and terrorist acts combined.

But we can't stop! What began with the introduction of money more than 2,000ya is ending in the death of us all. Mankind is trapped by his own will. When he set out to grow his own food, his own way, he began on the path of destruction and the invention of money only hastened his end.

Enormous fires are burning in Europe, and after the blazes that devastated parts of the USA, Spain, the Balkans, and Australia (one almost destroying Canberra in 2003) there are the floods. They rate among the worst anyone has seen. Global warming contributes also to cyclones, tornadoes, or massive storm cells that create havoc, loss of habitat, destruction of entire cities (such as New Orleans), and high death tolls. Such events wipe out crops, kill droves of domestic herds, batter the environment even more, and bring disease. They leave behind a scorched earth and the more they occur the worst the planet becomes.

While floods may devastate one part of a country drought is destroying the rest of it. This is the case in Australia where the worst drought on records continues. People are being driven from the land and agriculture is in the doldrums. Disease among animals is also on the rise. Bird Flue is just one of the latest but Horse Flue has now hot Japan and Australia and is also on the march. It too will cross species as history shows.

Human diseases are also massively increasing. Plagues, Aids, tuberculosis, cancer, and so on, are now out of proportion to a few years ago. Smallpox, once thought to have been wiped out is again with us. As too is Polio. Antibiotics are failing as cure all for these diseases and the future is bleak.

Our planet is dying and instead of trying to nurture it back to health we accept the inevitable so that some may accumulate more dollars and grow richer and more powerful through it. It is just a matter of time before our time runs out.

What can we do about it?

To begin with we can stop ignoring what is happening and start making demands of governments, politicians, and anyone creating the mess to clean it up. We can do it if we have the will.