We are hung in the balance at our universal crossroad–whether we deny it or not, the earth’s future depends upon all of us. The path can lead out of the greenhouse, where we are all trapped in the hothouse gasses emitted by our factories, our lawn mowers, our refrigerators, our hand mixers, our power tools, our nuclear furnaces, our electricity plants, our mining tools, our oil rigs, our everything dependent on fossil fuels for power, and the peoples of our planet, have become power hungry, and we must feel what each change in temperature, atmosphere, cloud cover, breath we take measures in one degree, for there are eight billion of us devouring smart phones, computer screens, homes, land, individual bathrooms, farm land, city streets, and the earth, the very dirt upon which we, each of us, stand. We threw away billions of reusable kilos of waste, last year, and this year it will be worse for there are more of us. If population levels off somewhere between 10 billion and 13 billion, we cannot avoid our own destruction. Unless…that’s the question, unless? So does each voice, even one more throat croaking into the air, beware, beware, beware, make a minuscule difference? When so many voices come together even in the few hundred people who will read this blog, there can be hope, for my wife and I recycle toilet paper tubes, plastic caps, scraps of newspaper, plastic bottles, everything we can find conceivable to recycle. We use a battery mower which mulches grass and leaves back into the soil. When we cannot mulch, we bundle twigs, sticks, an abundance of leaves, and though we cannot afford a battery-powered vehicle, we use a gas efficient compact car, and several years ago, we eliminated one vehicle and seldom does our car carry one person. We have added two layers of insulation to the steel-sided house, and the loft in the attic insulation measures between 20 and 30 cm. Our home is small, in ft. 1006 sq ft, and still we maintain an extra bedroom for dad or daughter or guest. Even so, we can convert the study to a third bedroom if need be. I’m sure we could do more; we could eat less meat, less dairy, more legumes, more soy, lentils, lima beans, dozens of beans, but this might not be cost-effective in terms of protein per kilo. We have tried to think of as much as possible, heating with natural gas and emitting as few hydrocarbons as possible with two of us. Still, we could, at the sacrifice of privacy, take in a border. This we chose not to do. So, within the truly possible, we are a green family. Are you? Most are not. Most do not see the brink upon which we are poised, so the earth will change and some will die. This is the truth of the matter; some will needlessly die. As a friend put it, we live in the sweet spot, so it probably won’t be us, or all our children. or all our children’s children. The possibility is there–we might wipe most of us away. But, the hope is, in Jesus name, that we can find peace. I have found peace, and I think about the waste, indelible waste. We might all disappear
, and this would be the ultimate, the end of our species, and though the angles sing, we all might be just our own souls, somehow wishing things had been different.
I am the author, and I have freighted myself. I am afraid for humankind, that we go the way of the dinosaurs. We all could make it different, but will we?
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