Earth Day '09

Being a student of the sciences, I feel compelled to comment on today's auspicious date: Earth Day, of course. I'm going to start off by saying something that I hope will be very clear. The media always talks about climate change, and everyone else argues about whether or not it is caused by humans. The sad thing about this debate is that with all this arguing, nothing is ever going to get done. If the earth starts to "cool" for 2 or 3 years, it will be all over, and the media (and likewise, the majority of the American populace) will stop caring about recycling and watch Youtube videos of 47 year old Scottish women singing.

Regardless of who you think is causing climate change, one thing is true: We are killing the planet.

Think about all the ways humans have negatively impacted the environment: from shoddy agricultural practices that overfished the seas and sucked the nutrients out of millions of acres of land to a dependence on disgustingly dirty fossil fuels that have contaminated the skies.

Sure, you may not believe that the greenhouse effect is all it's cracked up to be. But what do you think happens to all the chemicals release by the millions of cars and thousands of factories on this planet?

Sure, you may not think vegetarianism is the right thing for you. But considering that one pound of beef requires 4 gallons of petroleum to consume, is eating meat a sustainable lifestyle?

Look around you, world. We're destroying natural forests to build homes and then wondering why there are coyotes and deer on our lawns. We're clearing thousands of acres of the jungle to make farms for plants for biofuels and wondering why the rainforest is disappearing. We tell our kids to eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables and three servings of meat a day, forcefeed it to them, throw the rest we know they won't eat in the garbage, and then throw the trash in a landfill where it will never decompose because landfills are anaerobic environments (the result of tons of garbage piled on more garbage).

What can we do to fix it, you ask. EVERYTHING. You can't just build a few windmills here and recycle a bit in one city there and actually expect anything to be accomplished. In order to really put the world back on track, there needs to be a unified approach that attacks environmental problems of all sorts from all directions: energy use, food consumption, sustainable building practices, clean water and efficient sanitation, correct demolition and disposal practices. All of this and more has to be done and has to be done well. Otherwise, no real change will have occurred.

That's all for now, look out for more posts in the future.

PS: In writing this post, I realized that I could not express all my ideas into something you could read in one setting, so look out for my next post on environmentalism.