I’m having a hard time understanding the reasoning of people who are opposed to legislation that protects the environment.

We have only one earth. Pollution is toxic. Humans exist in a delicate balance with other species. It may seem insignificant that a particular type of owl or newt or wildflower has become instinct, but it isn’t. Mess with the balance too much and life as we know it is destroyed.

I suppose some people think that environmental regulations will harm the economy. Environmental policy can cause shifts–such as paper mills going out of business as more people rely on recycled products–but wouldn’t increased demand for recyled products help fuel the economy? What about new demand for environmental technologies? Wouldn’t they be a growth area that would provide good jobs for people? And consider how pollution has harmed certain industries. Will the tuna industry survive the new warnings about mercury? What about the beef industry and mad cow disease?

Why the hostility? What’s not to love about environmentalism?

This just in from Reuters news source:

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets’ worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday.

“For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth’s ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path,” WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF’s 2006 Living Planet Report.

“If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us,” Leape, an American, said in Beijing.

People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said.

(more…)

Maybe the video clip below does very little to concern you. After all, your not the one responsible for the city’s sore eye, nor is there anything you can do to fix it. Who’s problem is it anyway? Is it the city’s problem? or is it a problem only for the men and women and children who call this place their home which only occupies a microscopic slither of land on what we call planet earth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77tlgjdeGwM

The reality is that, this example of “visual pollution” is unfortunately everyone’s problem. When I say everyone, I mean everyone as in the entire world. I mean all of humankind. There is not one person on the face of this planet that is exempt from the devastion and destruction caused by our fellow man whether it is in South Africa or in the next town over. In fact, it really doesn’t matter how far away you are from it…just know matters will only get worse before they get better.

Well, again you may be thinking “so what” this is not my problem and I could really care less about what goes on in a place where I be lucky to visit once or twice in my entire life (and that’s only because Mister wasn’t paying attention and accidentally got off the wrong exit). Decidedly so, if it’s not your problem now it might become yours one day or worst yet, passed on to your children and their children’s children (that never ending cycle).

Anyway, the point of my post (by the way thanks for reading this far down in the post!) is no matter how daunting of a task it may seem to rid this cancer and make our environment a better place to live (not just for us but for our great, great grandchildren) is there is no one who is without resources to change the world. In other words, everyone and anyone has the resources available to make a difference.

Whether that difference is on a large or small scale, the message is LOUD and CLEAR: It all depends on you. It depends on each and everyone of us. As Daniel Quinn said,

“USE YOUR BEST RESOURCES TO DO WHAT YOU CAN DO. And that’s what I’m doing. Doing what I do best, I’m reaching hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in the cause of saving the world.”