Harder and harder to ignore

by Frank J. Regan (September 15, 2007)

There seems to be more reports about environmental degradation lately than you can shake a stick at: Are the Greenies on the rise, chicken-littling the climate change debate to death? I don’t think so. All that’s going on, that is, what’s indicated in this report is that conditions that affect human existence are going to be dramatically affected by manmade footprints. It’s time for the naysayer’s to climb out of their denial box and take a hard cold look at the plethora of facts and reports about the changes that our species have made on this planet. The answer is not to get overwhelmed and depressed, but to acknowledge that unprecedented change is going to occur and become part of the solution.

There is hope, some have looked ahead: One of the theories as to the popularity of science fiction is that in this vein of literature we can imagine future scenarios and virtually ‘move around’ in them to examine the repercussions of such a world. Science fiction writers have imagined all sorts of worlds, one of their favorite being our planet invaded by an alien race, one where all humans have to put away their differences and focus on the threat to us all. This is the message of the changes that are coming: We must stop acting the way we have and treat the changes coming to our planet as if an alien race were attacking us all. Which is sort of what is happening. If we don’t sort out our political and economic differences and focus on the common threat that Climate Change and other changes described in this latest report describe, then how to we solve them?

Most of the pundits on most of the mass media believe that the political concerns in the Washington beltway, or Iraq, or Iran, or North Korea, or sexual behavior of this or that senator, or the vagaries of the stock market, should preoccupy our minds. But, it isn’t so. While we squabble about our usual human transgressions a much larger problem about our ability to sustain our way of life is looming. We’d better find a way to better sort out our priorities or we will be battling the usual suspects while we all fall together.

 Vital Signs 2007 - 2008 | Worldwatch Institute "This report tracks and analyzes 44 trends that are shaping our future, and includes graphs and charts to provide a visual comparison over time. Categories of trends include: Food, Agricultural Resources, Energy and Climate, Global Economy, Resource Economics, Environment, Conflict and Peace, Communications and Transportation, Population and Society, and Health and Disease." --from Worldwatch Institute

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