For Sale

One planet. Looking to expand.

It seems anymore, that we’re no longer looking for intelligent life in the universe for answers to our own existence. Now we’re just looking for another planet to move to so we can trade in this old used jalopy, this old fixer upper we’ve done a less than stellar job of maintaining.

We’re trading it in like a used luxury car that now runs like a Lada…made on a bad day. Our lack of social conscience is staggering, we’re like a cancer victim who just doesn’t know enough to quit smoking. We don’t seem to really care unless it’s affecting us directly. Which of course it is, it’s just that we’ve been distracted so much we don’t even notice. After all, who can worry about trees in the Amazon when we’re fighting poverty or a perpetual war in the Middle East. We’ve left worrying about these concerns to the capable hands of those who can effectively solve the problem. Unfortunately those people have little more power than the rest of us. Besides, they can bring us the message but, as long as we’re not willing to do anything about it, we’re no better than the corporations bent on destroying the planet.

It took millions of years to reach the Industrial Age and only a hundred years for the Industrial Age to destroy this planet. Some legacy. How proud are you? We’ve been greedily sucking crude oil out of this old planet at an unprecedented rate. What were once the largest oil reserves in the world, fought over, besieged and soaked in bloodshed, are now on the verge of being abandoned. Why? Because they are running dry. The scary part? We have no idea whatsoever the long-term effects of draining the planet of oil. For all we know it’s the life source that keeps it going.

Lumber is quickly becoming the new Gold. Water is the new Oil.

We’re suspicious of our political leaders because politician’s methods haven’t changed, only their vocabulary. Anymore you can do anything you want as long as you use the correct vernacular. And besides, politician’s priorities are completely confusing to us.

Somehow guided missiles have become more important than guided people.

The concept of our ‘Global Village’ has been lost. Sure we run to the aid of the less fortunate in a crisis. The response to the tsunami in the South Pacific was heart warming and encouraging, but lets be honest for a moment here. Charitable donations turn into a bit of an international competition very quickly. What do we learn from this? We learn that when a global crisis arises our leaders ego’s are at stake and they respond in kind.

Well people, we have a global crisis on our hands. We’re perpetuating this crisis by sitting around doing nothing about it. So what action can we take? Do we protest? Do we hold international rallies to awaken our collective conscience? Anymore it seems to me that protests are commonplace and serve little more purpose than to pacify the masses. We get our angst out then go home, pat ourselves on the back for vocalizing our indignant attitude for the mistreatment of the planet, have a few drinks and then complacently forget about it until the next scheduled protest. And then there are those who will have nothing to do with an environmental protest because there is the perception that environmental activists are tree hugging, pot smoking hippy extremists. Too many derogatory labels on groups with legitimate concerns and good intentions have stifled awareness and change.

There was a time when mankind respected the earth. In fact we respected it so much we revered the elements as gods. Earth, Air, Water and Fire. There was a time when we were actually afraid of these elements. It seems that over time we’ve become so arrogant, so self-assured that we can harness the elements and survive them that we’ve actually forgotten they can overwhelm us at any moment. No matter how clever we become.

We need to remind ourselves, the Earth can open up and swallow a city if she wishes. Air can work itself up into a berserker frenzy and exact a path of destruction beyond our imaginations. Water can defeat the greatest sailors the world has to offer, or can move inland and simply power-wash an entire landscape. Fire is the all-consumer, the final death. And when these elemental gods conspire together the outcome can be so devastating entire civilizations can be lost. Wiped off the earth forever.

These are the gods we should be worried about offending. And yet it seems we’ve forgotten about them. It seems we’ve been pacified, lulled into a paralyzed and hypnotic state of amnesia. Completely sidetracked by the Ego Wars of our political leaders.

We’ve forgotten that Dissent is the Seed of Change. And we are in desperate need of change.