Killing ourselves

You might not expect such idiocy from a species named for its especially large and developed brain, but we are destroying our own habitat. In radically changing the face of the planet, as we continue to do, and by continuously releasing extreme quantities of pollutants into the environment, we are setting in motion our own (thoroughly justified) extinction. True, as a species we are ingenious and some will possibly manage to survive. Hopefully not as homo capitalis or homo prodigi (capitalist man or wasteful man, according to my Google-based Latin), but as some newer kind of man not bent on profiting from the rape of the Earth.

We are bankrupting ourselves and 'feeding the habit'. Consumerism and our credit-based society is putting large sections of society into an unsustainable position of ever-growing debt. Add to that that governments cater to the corporations and organisations largely responsible for that debt and the destruction mentioned above, you see that even those responsible for protecting us as a people are doing us in.

We are overfishing, overpolluting, overclearing and overusing. Sure, it seems like there are enough fish when you look at the fish in the supermarket. The sky and water look blue. It seems like there is forest aplenty around the world. Honestly, though, all is not as it seems. If we stop commercially fishing the oceans right now, the fish populations might recover. One day. The sky and water can look clean without actually being clean. And there IS a lot of forest. But those forests are responsible for filtering the air of the whole world, returning oxygen to the atmosphere so that we (and everything else) can keep breathing. Consider that not so long ago, most of North America and Europe used to be covered in forest and are now largely farmland, and look at how quickly forests are being cleared around the world to make space for more (poor) farmland. The scale at which we are taking away from the environment is immense. And the token efforts to compensate are negligible. Yet the rate of consumption is only increasing.

The 'developed' world is greedy and wasteful, 'buying' and claiming resources that belong to everyone in the name of profit, burning and disposing of vast resources to facilitate an addiction of bigger and better and more.

Here's a little doomsday scenario based on the forests mentioned above. Every person on Earth relies on those forests. We don't actually know exactly how much we need to survive, though, so we just keep on cutting it down. Because it's just forest. You don't have to pay for it. You can just take it. And what happens when oxygen levels in the atmosphere start to drop, and people start having symptoms of oxygen deprivation? Then what? The people at high elevations, where there is already less oxygen, would suffer first, of course. Typically these are not the richest or most powerful people in the world, though, so their voices would probably go unheard, while more forests are cleared. There wouldn't be a real fuss until it started to affect larger populations. So everyone who can afford it moves down to sea-level where there's more air and the people higher up just all curl up and die and maybe logging is halted. Maybe. But at that point there already isn't enough oxygen in the world for the people and the problem continues to get worse. People start planting trees, perhaps. But it's already too late. Plants need oxygen too. They can't grow without it. As oxygen levels drop, photosynthesis is less efficient, so less oxygen is released. Mass populations start feeling the effects. The rich start walking around with their own oxygen supplies and people start sealing themselves into oxygen-enhanced domes. But this can only work for a select few. There are too many people on Earth and something needs to be done about it. Wars start, in the name of survival, fighting over air. The poorer populations lose, of course, suffering from the tiring effects of oxygen deprivation, struggling to fight against the rich armies supplied with oxygen to make them active and strong. But no one knows what to do with all the bodies, of humans and animals dying all over the world. So they just retreat to their bubbles and let them rot in place. Unfortunately, decomposition releases even more CO2 and other pollutants into the air, which only contributes to climate change and pollutes the air even further. Meanwhile the world outside the bubbles is a toxic desert. Inside, there isn't enough food to go around. Not a nice scenario? Stop cutting down the forests! Stop taking! The  trees don't belong to everyone? Surely we can agree that the AIR does!

Oxygen is only one of the things we rely on the forests for, though. The Amazon rainforest in particular is considered one of the most important forests in the world, for its biodiversity and its influence on world climate and weather patterns. Seriously. And it is being cleared at a horrific rate. Why? To plant 'biofuel' crops - crops whose only point is to continue to fuel the fossil-fuel-based energy and vehicles we rely on today, two of the main sources of pollution in the world. 'Biodiesel' doesn't burn any cleaner than regular diesel, but since it comes from plants instead of oil, it's supposed to be okay. And since the rainforest is just there for the taking and people will pay ridiculous amounts of money for the oil crop, bye bye rainforest. Hello desert.

And this is just one of the many things we're doing wrong right now. Like good little scientists following the scientific method, we isolate problems and try to study just one variable at a time. And each one of the things may have horrendous consequences. But the total effect of all of the horrible scenarios I could describe right now would surely be even worse?! But that's not something that can be proven by 'scientific' experimenting; it's theoretical. So it isn't studied. It's not an actual 'environmental problem' in fact, unless/until society perceives it as a problem. Which it doesn't. Because right now it is just theoretical. The forests ARE still there right now. There ARE still a few fish in the seas. So you don't see a problem and don't think about it. And it won't change and we will continue on this path to destruction until we are all dead, and everything on Earth along with us.

Leave No Child Inside: Holland edition

I am regularly appalled by the stories I read from North America, where there appears to be an alarming trend of children no longer playing outside, be it for safety, security, comfort or other reasons. So much so that there is an actual term for the negative effect of not connecting with nature: Nature-deficit disorder. And there are social movements to take kids back outside: "Back to Nature", "Leave No Child Inside", etc. I read blogs focusing on getting kids outside and promoting independent outdoor activity. Really, it shocks me that they ever left. Such a huge part of my childhood was spent playing outside, I really can't imagine it any other way. I don't want to. Anyway, my personal concern was that such a trend had spread to Holland, where I live.

But apparently, if it has, there are steps being taken to counter it. Just today, I received an envelope in the mail full of stuff about OERRR. I don't know if the letters actually stand for anything, but it's something like Leave No Child Inside: Holland edition. It's a foundation run by Natuurmonumenten (the Society for preservation of nature monuments in the Netherlands), and its sole purpose is to get kids outside! The envelope contained: a backyard nature poster, a card with activities for kids to do outside (in the current season), and a registration/donation form and return envelope.

Step out the door, welcome to the Wild!

And on the website there's even a chant-like thing (or Call of the Wild, if you will) they've created:

Roughly translated, it goes like this:

I am wild! I wander through the woods

I am happy when I smell the wet forest after rainfall.

I chase after butterfleis, I roll down the sand dunes.

I hear the roar of the surf.

I've gotten scrapes and bruises.

I conquer my fears, trust in others, and learn to persevere.

I swim in lakes and feel the weeds brush my legs

I jump over logs and make fires.

I get out of breath.

And I relax on a bed of moss.

I'm happiest when I'm in the place I know best:

Nature

Soon I'll speak in words,

eat with knife and fork,

I won't run across the grass anymore.

I won't shriek in the backyard.

I'll sit inside. Nicely.

I won't be amazed anymore.

For now I just ask one thing:

Give me the Wild,

for as long as it lasts.

The wild is the source of the nature monuments (and the foundation for their preservation).

I think that's a pretty potent poem, actually.

Aside from the huge waste of paper that makes the environmentalist in me cringe, particularly for all the envelopes going to families with no children, where they will likely land unopened in the recycling bin, I think it's a good movement. While the tree-hugger in me mourns the paper waste, however, I recognise the need to perpetuate the environmentalist movement as well. If the next generation doesn't appreciate Nature, well, then basically we're all doomed, as far as I'm concerned. So the part of me that takes a broader look at things (sees past the paper to the pretty pictures and words on it, if you will), applauds the vision and maybe even excuses the waste. And I registered The Little Ninja right away. I look forward to the free activity cards they'll send him four times a year and the things it'll inspire us to do and discover outside. 

Speaking of stuff to do outside, they have BAREFOOT WALKING TRAILS here. They're all on the other side of the country, but that's only a couple hours' drive away. They sound so cool. And fun. And now that The Little Ninja can walk, we're totally going to go next year. I'll write more about them then. :D