On Being Cold Heartedly Selfish

It's not someone else's problem

Before you do something, take some action, commit to some deed, no matter how small or apparently inconsequential do you ever ask yourself, "what impact will my action have on someone I know; family, friend, or lover?"   Can you extend that and ask yourself that same question about people you don't know.

People Around Long After You Are Dead

For instance what about people who will be around in 80 years.  Ever wonder how your carbon footprint, or the pollution you leave behind will impact them? If you are just having kids now, this will be your kids when they are old.  If you have kids that are halfway grown or just having kids, these people will be your grandchildren.  If you kids are having kids this will be your grandchildren's children.  Are they too far removed from you for you to care?  What's statute of limitations on caring: one generation, two generations,  three generations?

Are you drinking out of a Styrofoam cup right now?  Or have you used a Styrofoam container to bring home food since the last time the trash was taken out.  Please take a moment to look at it and know that  it's legacy will be around long after you have been forgotten, long after your grandchildren will be gone.

People Who Live Someplace Else

Let's say you live in Chicago. When you flush the toilet, do you think of Lemont, Lockport or Morris?  They are all all downstream from Chicago's over-taxed water reclamation system, not to mention all the crap that ends up in the rivers that should end up in trash cans.  And when you think of Morris, quaint little poster town for American Gothic, do you think of cancer when you turn on a light switch? Yes! Cancer!  

You Too Can Be Carcinogenic!

Morris is situated right next to the Dresden Nuclear Power plant and almost right on top of the Morris Operation.  Never heard of the Morris Operation?  Well it's the only high level radioactive waste storage facility in the United States.  That's right all of the most highly volatile nuclear waste is shipped to cute little Morris, some of it coming though Chicago.  Dresden power plant generates nearly half of the electric power used in the Chicago Metropolitan area and it's not like the power distribution is parsed out so that some goes here and some goes there.  Next time you frivolously leave a light on think of Morris and Leukemia.

Cute Little Morris, IL

If you don't live in Chicago, these kind of Nuclear waste disposal storage facilities are all over the country.  Click here to see if any are near you. It is a list of power plants cause that is where the largest amount of waste is stored until one of the permanent plants is opened.  If you leave near one of these, consider your cancer risk raised.

What To Do: A New Paradigm For Starters

Start thinking differently. I would contend that being mindful of everyone else in every action is a good place to start and from there work your way into the specifics of solving each problem. Stop thinking that the solution is someone else's business and your responsibility ends with awareness and a public gripe for someone else to take care of the problem.

 It's true that these problems are often created for profit, but that profit is gained only by leveraging our need and addiction to convenience.  There are two tools in your toolbox for creating change: the fact that you are a consumer and money.  Yes money!  It's how the big profiteers exact control and since there are so many of us, we only have to give smaller amounts to our favorite warriors of political change (special interest) the same as the big guys. (See below).  As consumers, we can become educated (Google makes that incredibly easy) about the impact of what we purchase and not purchase that which works against the best interest of us...us being all of us!

Show Them The Money

Below is a list of groups that not only fight against issues, but fight for positive change. Pick your favorite issue and cut a check:

Pro Sustainable Energy Lobbies

Solar Energy Industries Association
American Wind Energy Association

Nuclear Waste Reduction:

Greenpeace
Sierra Club

Yes. The Planet Does NOT Need Saving

The Human Race Does.

I know this is feeding into quibbling between proponents of the anthropogenic aspect of climate change and deniers.  Also, I am aware that  I am once again, preaching to the choir.  Those who believe that the whole plethora of potential and sometimes currently realized danger to the human race grouped under the umbrella of Global Warming will nod their heads in agreement, while Climate Change Deniers will sputter at this in mock.  Nobody's opinion will be changed.

What brings me here to post after a long hiatus from posting¹ (Tired of trying to teach pigs to sing) was several discussions in which I participated where people rather flippantly indicated that "the planet" has been taking care of itself for more than 4.5 billion years without needing saving by humans.  One person in such a discussion quoted comedian George Carlin² as a source, missing the double entendre of his joke.  If you have read any of my previous posts, you would realize that by this point in a post, I would have already quoted statistics like scripture, but have since learned that facts are ineffectual to  changing opinions.  I need to find a muscle-bound man and bikini clad woman in yoga poses to convey my message,  So, here's my rant³...er appeal to sensibilities:

Does this really need explaining?

Evidently, people don't get that "saving the planet" used in the vernacular is a colloquialism for keeping Earth habitable for humans; "saving the planet" means saving the human race.  Even when I titled my book "The Council to Save The Planet"  it had a bit of a tongue-in-cheek double meaning.  The tagline for the book read: "Take care of the Earth before the Earth takes care of you"

The Fatalistic Solipsism of Deniers.

The flippancy of the logic that Earth is on it's own agenda is the first indication of the solipsistic avoidance of personal inconvenience required to reduce carbon footprints, waste that won't decompose, conservational use of water and other resources, etc...  The harsh reality of selfishness of epidemic proportions practiced by climate change deniers come from the projections from the International Panel on Climate Control⁴ (IPCC) which show that real problems with the current carbon acceleration⁵ won't become cataclysmic until 2100.  It's not our problem, it won't happen until we are gone.

I don't know about you, I find this lack of compassion for future generations to be appalling selfish to the point of being pathological.  I would have used the term sociopathic, but I'm sure someone would argue that we can't be in society with future generations.  However, we can be compassionate and empathetical to those who will pay the price for our actions. Worse is the fact that those who will be the first to be harmed the most are poor from Third World countries. Now the term sociopath can be invoked to individuals who defer care about those less fortunate than privileged U.S. citizens⁶.

It's Not Someone Else's Problem

If you think about things blamed for green house emissions (cars, power plants, and manufacturing) there is no way to point the finger at someone else.  These are things that us ordinary individuals (AKA "consumers") leverage for our convenient lifestyles.    We are in control.  We can reduce our use of cars, reducing gas consumption. We can reduce our power consumption⁸.  We can reduce how much and what we purchase, reducing more power consumption and our output of non-degradable pollution,  We can conserve water⁹.  Sounds small scale, but multiply what you can do by 300 million and you have massive impact.  Most know how to do this, Global Warming ethicists and activists have pounded this at you for decades.  If not Google each, or look below where I have done it for you.

Rather than demanding that manufacturers give us more sustainable products and technology and that the government regulate those manufacturers to ensure sustainable products, we can change our habits to drive these changes. That is the one beautiful thing about Capitalism. It's really driven from the bottom up. It just means getting past The Cult of Convenience.

A New Zeitgeist

I have discovered that railing about specific practices needed to ensure a sustainable planet for our descendants is not productive.  We all know what we can do.  What's really required is a whole new way of thinking; one that is more mindful of others, alive or yet to be born.  This is tough for most U.S. citizens indoctrinated in the paradigm of rugged individualism (selfishness) .  The Cult of Convenience is rife with entitlement and status by gain, but lacking in empathy

Try this:  As often as you can, before you do something, buy something, throw something away, ask yourself how will this impact others, now or in the future?  A good time might be while you are in yoga class trying to ignore the pain of the Upside Down Flying Dog position.  Trust me, an overall new paradigm of concern for others will do a world of good


Footnotes
(Not only required to make this post look official, but informational also)

1. Actually I opted for action, by giving money to the strongest pro-ecology lobby in the US The Nature Conservancy
2. Carlin's opinion as a comedian of course outweighs the opinion of the 800 scientists of the International Panel on Climate Change and NASA
3. Rant's play better nowadays.
4. For those of you who are capable of reading more that short paragraphs Click here for the IPCC projections
5. "Carbon acceleration" refers to the fact that the rate of emissions gases released into the atmosphere is greater than the rate the Earth can turn it back into Oxygen and that rate is accelerating
6. The US has 3% of the planet's population, yet contributes to 25% of the green house emissions. Only China is higher, but that is only because they have so many more people.  On a person by person basis the Carbon Footprint⁷ of each Chinese person is 1/4th of each U.S. citizen contributes
7. Carbon footprint describes all green house emissions released by a particular entity (person, vehicle, factory, power plant) being assessed.  
8. Reducing your power / electric consumption <--Click
9. Conserving water <--- Click

You are responsible for the future.  

What No One Will Talk About: The Eco-Elephant in the Global Living Room

Overpopulation! Too many people for the Earth to sustain!

That's right! There are more people generating carbon footprints (greenhouse gas emissions)than the Earth can reconvert into oxygen (Continued below)

The curve of the population growth -- Hell, explosion -- exactly matches the the curve of the increasing global warming. And, no it is not a typical cycle of the planet. In the past temperature changes have related to cooling, not increased temperature (e.g. the ice age and the Dark Age). Neither of those correlate with population change so indentically.

Since the industrial revolution, world population has doubled every 40 years

The Global Warming - Population Connection

To learn more about the connection between population growth and global warming, click here

And we (the U.S.) are the worst contributors to greenhouse emission

Yup. We have less than 4% of the world population, but contribute to over 25% of the greenhouse emissions. But, you may be saying, China contributes more! On a person by person basis, no they don't. Each Chineses person's carbon footprint is 1/4th of each U.S. citizens carbon footprint. It's just that there is more than 4 times as many Chinese (1.6 billion vs 260 million). That means that whatever you do, eco-good or eco-bad, multiply it by 260 million. If you want to find out what simple things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, click here

This message has been brought to you by The Council To Save The Planet!

For more information or purchase, click here

Global Warming, Population, Overpopulation, ecology, environment, speculative fiction, science fiction

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  Global Warming


• Population


• over population


• ecology


• science fiction


• environment


• global disaster


• speculative fiction


• eco-fiction


• ecofiction


• ecoparable


• global destruction