Saving Planet Earth -- A Complaint?

Much has been said and written about saving the planet from destruction by its human inhabitants.  We are asked to have a small 'footprint' on the planet, to "reduce, reuse, recycle," and to take other actions to help save the planet. The call to change often implies that we should feel guilty for damage to the planet from our ever more expansive lifestyles.  We are informed that without sacrifices, we will experience irreversible planet damage, and life on planet Earth could be doomed, if it is not already be too late.

All this may be completely true, and in consequence we are expected to take on a spartan and ascetic existence. But wait a minute.  

Slums in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
photo by World Resources on Flickr

Saving Planet Earth -- What is wrong with you people?

When it comes to saying that the Earth is in peril, too many people are deniers and non-caring to be dismissed. The diversity of human attitudes presents a quandary.

People are polarized in their viewpoints.  The deniers, the uncaring, together with the guilt-ridden believers are an unholy combination.  We can ask whether there is any commonality among the groups so as to make progress towards an effective response to the changing condition of the Earth.

http://mindprod.com/image/environment/overpopulation.jpg

For one thing, most people feel compelled to protect themselves with some sort of contingency planning for unknown future events. What is to be the contingency plan for possible destruction of the Earth? Sometimes life insurance is seen as meeting contingency needs, which in this case might be thought of as a life insurance policy on the life of the planet.  However, if planet life fails, collection on the policy will be difficult.

Do we build survival shelters so we can continue to live through an apocalyptic era, surviving on a spent planet, with the few remaining people using diminished earth resources?  These are questions too big for one short discussion.  Some visionary answers can be found in movies of apocalypse and post-apocalypse life -- if you can accept them.

Saving Planet Earth -- You too can be guilt-free

[When it comes to saying that the Earth is in peril, too many people are deniers and non-caring to be dismissed. The diversity of human attitudes presents a quandary.]

Photo: Dennis Stefani, (c) Mrs. Me, Inc., 2008,
made available under a CC
BY-NC-ND license

The people who deny that the planet is experiencing risky human behaviors and those who do not care about the risk are people who do not feel guilty about population growth.  Good for them because their lack of guilt helps to keep them healthy. (Guilt is considered bad for health.) They respond to increasing population in a fashion analogous to saying "there is always more room at the inn."  Read this as the world instead of the inn, and more room is room for more people.  In other words, there is always room on the planet for more people. so the deniers and non-caring enjoy life without guilt even as they create more babies. They think there is always more room on Earth no matter how crowded it gets.