Adding a bit more commentary to the site

Moons ago, I tuned my television to CNN to watch “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines.” Despite Anderson Cooper’s Jack Bauer-esque reporting and Soledad O’Brian’s sassy temperament I found myself quickly annoyed with the unending cry me a riverthesis that planet earth is under a direct threat. In a world with nearly unlimited problems I lament the fact that so much time, money, and concern are being wasted on a very old rock, floating weightlessly in an unfathomably large universe and not, instead, on this rocks inhabitants. 
My frustration with the green community and it’s central mission, to “save the earth”, has been building for some time. I’m not sure when the purpose of being green shifted from preserving resources for further generations to treating the earth as a person, or dare I say deity, that we should make daily sacrifices for, but it seriously needs to stop for the sake of the green movement. We lose our ability to sell the notion of sustainability when we submit the earth as the sole benefactor. I cringe whenever I hear or read someone selling “green” products or activities by saying “we need to save the earth!” because the concept of saving (as in rescuing) our planet is so asinine it redefines absurdity. 

Message to my fellow “greenies”: The Earth Does Not Need Saving

I sense that part of this compulsion to rescue the earth, from certain disaster no doubt, comes from a lack of perspective. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. The average human lives maybe seventy years… longer if they have a dog.  Nothing that humans come into contact with on a daily basis is older or more resilient than the planet earth. Many years ago it was pummelled by an asteroid off the coast of Mexico, even that didn’t spell an end for our perilous planet.  It survived and we came later.  If we were to continue our non green ways and continue to use earth’s resources without regard for future generations, what would happen to planet earth? Would it cease to be the 3rd planet in the solar system? Would the activity at it’s core stop? From the earth’s point of view would anything notable happen to it that could compare to its violent past? No, No, and No.  (For more info on this, check out the “life after people” shows on the history / discovery channels… our earth recovers from us in a mere 250 years!)

But, if our ways aren’t a threat to earth what are they a threat to? What will happen if we continue to use resources the way we do now?  Imagining this scenario reveals the true reason to use earth’s resources wisely… to preserve and protect humans.  Our unwise use of earth’s riches are not and never will be a threat to our planet, but they will assuredly, be a threat to our children and their children, and so on and so forth.  If we continue to take and use more than we need, there will be less for future generations. This, coupled with increasing population, will cause famine, disease, drought, fire, and all sorts of human suffering.

The Planet is not in Peril, We are. This is the message that members of the green community should adopt and use to promote sustainability.  People rightly have more compassion for other people than they do for the earth and if we make people the reason to recycle or waste less water, we will be much more successful. But if we continue to prioritize the earth before people, we will fail.

So lets all come together and redefine our mission and our cause.

We are not a threat to nature, but subject to it.

The Earth does not need saving, We do.

and…

The Planet is not in Peril, We are.

Sorry CNN.