Last year, about this time, David wrote about how profits won't matter if our drinking water, air and soil become contaminated rendering us helpless keeping our children and children's children and so on from becoming sicker and sicker.
You can read the entire article here http://thegoodhuman.com/2012/01/03/profits-wont-matter-post-climate-change/). Below are sections of the longer article. The bold, italicized words are my own comments.
...We are in a lot of trouble...because we as a nation refuse to slow down our consumption habits, limit our greenhouse gas emissions, and sign on to international climate treaties. Destructive weather is going to be the norm for the foreseeable future (remember Hurricanes Katrina, Irene, Sandy?), until we finally finish ourselves off. Remember, the planet will be fine — it's us that's screwed.
According to NASA and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in the next 100 years we can expect the following:
- Plant and animal species will face increasing competition for survival
- A serious reduction in planetary biodiversity
- Rising sea levels, which will make many current coastal communities completely uninhabitable
- More intense heat waves
- Stronger hurricanes and blizzards
- More virulent diseases
- Worldwide food shortages
All the recycling and buying “greener” gifts at Christmas in the world is not going to save us anymore. We need new people in charge around the globe who care more about people than corporations, and every last one of us needs to make drastic changes in our behavior and lifestyles. Switching out light bulbs makes us feel good, but it’s not really going to do much in the big picture. It’s time to get tough, get honest with ourselves, and take a hard look in the mirror and see that the way most of us currently live needs to change if we want to have any chance of long-term survival. We need to take responsibility for our own actions! Voting politicians into office who are in bed with polluting corporations and investing in companies because they will make us more money, build up our nest egg and the like, only FEED the problem.
- We need to pay more for well-made heirloom-quality furniture and not instantly look for cheap paperboard stuff that lasts a year or two. Buy it once, keep it for life, pass it on.
- We need to spend the extra money on organic foods, so that organic foods become the norm rather than the exception.
- We need to live in smaller houses, live more local, and invest in our communities rather than in a faceless corporation with warehouses in faraway lands.
- We need to start calling out corporations and environmental organizations for green washing the truth. We cannot expect groups like The Nature Conservancy to do the right thing for the rest of us when Monsanto is stuffing their back pockets with millions of dollars.
- And, again, along with taking responsibility for the above actions, take responsibility in what you invest your money in. If you are complaining about how certain companies are destroying the planet but are still receiving dividends in your mutual funds and stocks from those very same companies, then it's time to rethink your investments.
New Year's is a time for resolutions. Why not make a few of your own which help our planet and the inhabitants on it.