Reply #44: You hit the proverbial nail on the head, opi

[IrateCitizen]

One of the books that opened my eyes to this reality was The Sacred Balance by David Suzuki. Western civilization has conditioned us to believe that the environment is somehow something separate from ourselves -- and therefore, little more than a resource to be exploited and controlled. However, the true reality is that we are wholly dependent on the environment for our very survival. We depend on its air, water and soil -- not to mention countless other organisms that share the planet with us -- for our very lives.

Furthermore, the planet is a complex ecosystem in which everything is dependent on everything else. Think of it as an intricate spider's web. If you break some strands here and there, the web will still stand. But tear enough strands, and sooner or later, a large part of it will collapse. Keep on tearing them, and the whole thing will fall in on itself.

Right now, we are precipitating the largest mass extinction of species that the planet has seen since the end of the age of the dinosaurs (cited from the book Affluenza by DeGraff, et.al.) and at the same time acting as if everything is fine. We have destroyed over half of the original forests on the earth, with some of the most valuable ecosystems (South American and Indonesian rainforests, for example) disappearing at incredibly rapid rates. We are currently consuming 33% more resources than the earth can replenish on a yearly basis (chief among these being arable soil and clean water supplies), and if every nation on earth adopted the same "standard of living" as the US, the figure would jump to five times as much.

Many prominent international groups of scientists estimate that we have, at most, two generations to fix things before we begin to suffer MAJOR environmental catastrophe. That's two generations MAX -- it may be less than that. Those major environmental catastrophes will mean the end of civilization as we know it, there's no other way of realistically looking at it.

Scared yet? If not, you should be -- because we are currently doing NOTHING to adequately address these issues, instead trying to squeeze a few last drops of blood out of the turnip before it crumbles in our hands.