The Suicide Path

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/peter-g-cohen/53029/the-suicide-path

A call to awaken our nation to the suicidal course we are following, and offer some suggestions on reviving our democracy

The Suicide Path
by Peter G. Cohen | December 6, 2013 - 10:20am

My concern is not for a political theory or system, nor for one belief or another. My concern is for the survival of humanity and as many of the living species in the world as possible. We humans have been given an unbelievably diverse, beautiful and fruitful natural world, which we have squandered for immediate gain and shallow ends. We have trashed the Garden of Eden - like teenagers on a beer-laced picnic, trampling this and that, and leaving our waste behind.

The result is that human waste is now poisoning the natural environment, which is so overwhelmed that it can no longer absorb our waste or replace our consumption. We have destroyed the balance of nature. By burning the forests and fossil fuels, we have changed the atmosphere. As the temperature climbs, it intensifies heat waves, fires, storms and floods. If we do not change, these effects will increase until human life and the nature that sustains it is lost -- forever.

We, who have conquered every corner of the Earth and touched the moon, cannot believe what is happening before our eyes. As temperatures rise, storms intensify, hurricanes, tornadoes and typhoons rip apart our homes and wash away our people. Yet, we still do not have a world plan to reduce our greenhouse gasses and we continue to waste valuable time arguing with the global community. We are still facilitating the blasting, drilling and fracking, the piping and shipping of more, and ever more of the toxic greenhouse fuels. We are on a path to suicide.

If we continue with business as usual, most of the Earth will be uninhabitable in decades. Hot and dry or washed away, our fields will no longer produce enough food and our few remaining trees will not provide enough oxygen for normal breathing. Yet our elected representatives continue their partisan bickering over the appointment of judges and filibuster rules.

[pscot]

1. And so it goes

[stuntcat]

2. k

.