I don't want to begin a scientific discussion, although if it goes that way, that's okay. Statistics can be interpreted to bolster any position, and vested interests on both sides can use the same data to support their point, no matter what it is. This is more about lifestyle.
I have felt like our society is on race towards a headlong crash, and has been for some time. I felt this way before I ever heard of global warming, but when it became a buzzword, it did not surprise me. Look around you. You wouldn't run a car inside your house, would you? Yet, every morning and every evening, lines of cars fill the highways, filling our "earth home" with exactly the fumes we would never dream of emitting in our own house. Add factories, power plants. Add clear cutting, pavement, pesticides, and on and on, and you can see that we are screwing up. It's only a matter of time before it catches up with us.
I've thought about this a lot. Some of what we use, we need. Most of it, we don't. The problem is, our economy is set up to exploit the earth. What is people stopped buying unnecessary things? What if we decided that smaller homes made more ecological sense? Suppose we carpooled, used public transportation, lived close to our jobs? Our economy would tank. So on one hand, there is this notion of "duh, yeah, we do need to make some changes," but those who are doing well in our economy have every reason for us not to change. In fact, the powers that be are scared of sensible change.
The earth is a living, changing being. Rivers change course, mountain ranges mellow over time, sand bars shift. Forests change from pines to hardwoods, and back again, in response to the forces of nature. Then, along comes man. Bam! Pavement here, creek there. No more change. Lawn here, forest gone. No more change. And on and on. So now we have global warming.
What needs to change is us, in a big way. We need to change our minds about what is acceptable, and even what is respectable. If SUVs became an embarassment instead of a status symbol for anybody who isn't off roading, could it save us? No, but it would be a step in the right direction.
What we need to change is our minds.
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Nina, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I don't know now if we're experiencing Global Warming or not...there are so many convincing arguments both pro and con, but common sense (yes! remember that, you leaders?) tells me that what you say is true. No life form has ever changed their planet the way we have.
I've been in a fair number of countries, courtesy of Uncle Sam, and America is not the only culture using up our natural resources at an alarming rate. Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Athens, London...they all have unbelievable traffic jams. Cars, cars, cars, everywhere! Sure, they're smaller, but they still use up gasoline and emit noxious fumes. Who can convincingly tell me we're not poisoning our earth?
Plus, it just kills me when one side refutes the ozone layer depletion theory. I don't actually know if there are holes in the ozone, but...how can there not be?
I'm a car guy, so it might surprise some people when I rant about automobiles, but one of my finely tuned hot rods, without a catalytic converter, will easily pass emissions standards. On the other hand, those aforementioned SUV's, most of which never leave the road or carry anything more than a bunch of soccer kids, are extremely suspect once that catalytic converter becomes clogged (in about 3 years, it seems) and are truly an embarrassment. Come on, people...must we have the BIGGEST car on the road?
Ever fly over your home state, and see the amount of concrete down there? We're like a swarm of insects, covering the land until there is no more, and one day we'll make our own kind obsolete, out of necessity.
And it's not just about the cars. It's about our consumption of energy. What about saving rainwater for our plants? (my folks do that).
What about recycling even more--rinsing out that can and putting to recycle?
There are all kinds of things we could all do--but that's the thing. Enough people have to do it to work--and will they?
I agree with everything that's been said, and probably can't say it any better.
check this out
I read the link, Chris. I can't agree with it, because I don't think the issue is really whether what is going on can be defined as global warming, or whether scientists understand everything. Nobody understands everything, which is why we should live more respectfully of our planet than we do.
If the way we are living is perfectly fine with nature, then what do we lose if we scale down our use of the earth's resources? Nothing. Most of what we use is irrelevant anyway. Very little of what we do makes any difference in the quality of our lives. My feeling is that if we can learn to concentrate of the things that do make a personal difference and forgo the rest, we make less of a dent in the world, and we still have that which really does matter.
If however, our lifestyle is indeed destroying the earth, as I believe it is, then there is no excuse for continuing to live like we have unlimited resources, and that the earth will clean up whatever messes we make.
Personally, I think that we can all use less than we do, myself included. The changes I would like to see are bigger, societal changes. I'd like to see a world where the acquisition of things, once the basics are covered, is not a goal.
I can't do that by myself, so we start with things like recycling and carpooling, but ultimately, it would be nice if we, as a human race, could change our minds.
There's one thing that I think we can all agree with: Global weather science is in its infancy. We really don't KNOW what effect we're having on our climate. Therefore, I tend to side with both Nina and Chris (and probably most of us,) in that I believe we all have too much "stuff" and too little regard for what COULD happen, if our wasteful ways continue unchecked.
As I get older, I'm more and more inclined to divest myself of all this extraneous "stuff" that seems to not only NOT be useful to me anymore, but is choking me with its very presence. I want to minimize...to cut my possessions to the minimum that I need, and I'm frankly embarrassed by just how much "stuff" I've accumulated over these 57 years.
We recycle, we don't waste water on our yard, we don't even take the newspaper out of an interest in saving trees...but it's not nearly enough. Nina is right: it needs to be done by the whole of society. Then, maybe issues like Global Warming would be moot points.
Thanks for the pat on the back, Bruce. I lived in the country for many years, and in the last five or six have been surrounded by McMansion subdivisions. I feel like I have a front row seat on a lifestyle I don't understand. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks the "More stuff, bigger impact" lifestyle misses the point.
So while recycling and using swirly lightbulbs may be little things we can do, what is the real change that needs to take place? For a start, it needs to become respectable to live small. In fact, it should become fashionable.
Many people are followers. I had my children at the time when expectant mothers were playing classical music to their fetuses, because somebody somewhere had said that this would give them smarter children. I listened to music like Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and I have really smart children. I followed none of the silly trends my generation seems to have followed in either child raising or lifestyle, preferring to listen to myself instead. Meanwhile, most of my generation seems to be sold on any idea as long as it is the trend. Thus, we have palatial bathrooms, SUVs, leaf blowers and mothers who spend every afternoon schlepping their children from activity to enriching activity. There is a better way. I know. I lived it. I have wonderful, almost grown kids, who also don't understand why people are so crazy, and who don't hold it against me that I never took them to McDonalds.
Make it respectable to be laid back. Just as bargain hunters, even rich ones, show off how cheap they got something, let us turn our competetive natures not to having more, but to using less. “Look! We managed to fit all this living space into 1600 square feet,” they would exclaim proudly. “We got a Honda Accord, and we all fit fine. Who"da thought?” Or “The kids seem to share so much better now that they have to take turns in the shower.” Let people wax on about their gardens instead of their gourmet kitchens. Let them show off as they learn to juggle space. Let them be the first on their block to carpool.
There is this idea that each American generation should live better than their parents. It didn't account for what would happen when the parents lived well. It's time to stop that nonsense.
Live small. Figure out which dreams are really important, and chase those.
A lot of good posts here, but allow me to add a few thoughts.
God gave us this planet. We were to be its guardians, but when we sinned (and all of us have done so) we began makng all kinds of errors. The so-called "Global Warming" that people are talking about is a product of our irresponsibility to our planet, and it started a heck of a lot earlier than even the invention of the automobile.
Earth, like people, were created in balance. When that balance is disturbed there are problems, problems which tend to snowball into things that are beyond our control.
In Africa cattle roam the once forested lands and now draught kills both man and animal. In the same way we have disregarded our atmosphere to the point where I believe God is bringing something down on us. Scripture talks about how the EARTH trevails as a woman in labor at the end of times. Did you know there is a new planet in our solar system? Scientists are calling it "Planet X". It is further out than Pluto, but has entered into our system and is revolving around our Sun. The significance of this planet is that the only thing in our solar system with a greater gravitational pull is the Sun. Our earth is heating up from the CORE, not so much holes in the Ozone layer. Just suppose, however, both are happening. Didn't Peter prophesy in his letters that the 2nd time God destroyed the earth it would be by fire?
My friends. We are at a point where if we walked everywhere we went. Ate fruits and nuts (and maybe some uncooked fish - sushi) we would still be destroyed. We've already set the machine in motion. What we need to do now is make sure every person that we meet has the chance to know Jesus and find salvation through Him. Time is short. He is coming soon. And we must learn these lessons for that "New Heaven and New Earth" which shall replace these. If we do not, will we not destroy them also?
David Brollier
David,
My first notion was to write this off as religious writing, but then I read back on it. Some of what you say is very true, although I don't agree with the religious take. Still, that part doesn't matter. It's personal.
What is happening was indeed set in motion before widespread use of the automobile. It probably began with the industrial age, which did improve the standard of living for many people. So in a sense, we are destroying the earth in order to raise the standard of living. There's a point at which we should have stopped, claiming that out standard of living was high enough, thank you, and that it was okay to spread the wealth to other places that need it, then stop.
Where we part ways is that I don't think God brought this down on us. We did it ourselves.
It happened because people got greedy. Instead of saying "thank you for what I have been given," humans said "I want more."
According to the Hopis, this is the fourth world. To the Mayans, this is the fifth. Nearly all world cultures have some version of the flood story we attribute to Noah. The Hopis have a few Hopis stepping out onto the rocks as the flood recedes, beginning the world we know today.
Who will step out onto the proverbial rocks this time? We don't know, and we don't know when. All we can do is live like we've got some sense, and hope that whoever lives on into what you call "the new heaven and the new earth" does too.
Nina, thank you for your comments. All too few people take the time to check things out, to think things through. You did that. It is a virtue.
My "personal" comments about God are not meant to be religious. Heaven save us from religion. And you are probably right that God, in the truest sense, isn't going to rain down anything on us. Yet, because of our choices He will allow the fruit of those choices to be made manifest.
We do have hope. It isn't in religion, and certainly not technology, but it is in Jesus. When I speak of such things I'm talking about having a personal relationship with Him. When we do we become God's children. In other words, we become family. There is no religious order that tells me what I can and cannot do. There is a Father that I love. Because I love Him I chose not to do things and I chose to do others. I can't list them here because the list would be different for each person. The fact is that Jesus is our hope. We can trust Him.
David
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