How it all ends...

As I learn more and more about the world, and about humanity's place in it, I become more and more convinced that none of us will realize we have irreparably destroyed the environment until it is too late.

Now before your eyes glaze over let me tell you what I mean: while we all plant a tree because John Denver told us to, and we recycle our aluminum because our schools told us to, and we stop driving gas guzzling cars because Al Gore told us to, and we clean up all of these acts, we will continue to pump millions of cubic yards of toxic waste into the oceans, meanwhile we happily, and without any regulation, are sucking fish and crustaceans out of the ocean at a rate that roughly follows the population of people with electricity on this planet. We bring asian carp into our rivers and lakes, and they take over. We bring zebra mussels into our reservoirs and streams, and they take over, the local environments are wiped out, completely. But we don't see it, because we live on land. We send massive trawlers into the ocean to suck as much lobster and crab and bluefin tuna and shark and whale and shrimp and swordfish as we can and then we plant a little coral reef and tell ourselves "we're doing great things for the oceans!"

But truly I tell you, 70% of this planet is covered in water, and 98% of our environmental protection methods are land or air-based.

When we destroy this planet, I mean really tip it over the edge, it'll be because we wrecked the oceans. Life started with water, and life will end with it.


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