What Does Our Future Look Like?

I remember the first college homecoming I attended. What I immediately noticed was how things changed. There was all of this new development around the school and later on, not too far from the school was the presence of gangs. How things have changed over the years.

The recent climate change protests were basically about trying to secure a livable future for future homecomings on the earth. Not that we will have any in the near future, but we should note that those of us who stay here have a real volatile future at best. Why? What was declared by Occupy Wall Street provides a partial answer (click here for the source):

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

 

Considering the hormones injected into our animal products to the cancer causing insecticides sprayed on our fruits and vegetables, it is impossible to argue against the statement. But that wasn't what the recent climate change protests were about. 

What were the protests about? They are about how we are poisoning more than just our foods for today and how we are destroying the future for our children and grandchildren. We are like the one rich man from the Bible parable who said, 'Eat, drink, and be merry.' And so many of us are following in his example while denying the real price we and future generations will have to pay for today's indulgences.

Consider the following regarding how the effects of climate change are accelerating at a fast pace than expected:

• We have had 24 category 5 hurricanes during this century which is more than twice the number of category 5 hurricanes for any 20 year period previous to the 21st century.
• The ocean is acidifying because it is absorbing some of the carbon monoxide not kept in the atmosphere. 
• Much of the permafrost is melting which releases the greenhouse gas methane.
• The atmosphere and the seas are warming
• The polar ice caps are melting causing a fast sea level rise than expected because of the warming of the atmosphere and seas.
• The warmer temperatures are contributing the increased number of wildfires during this century.
• The number of dead zones in the oceans increased by 3 times from 2004 to 2008. Much, but not all, of that is due to how we mass create our food supply.

 One doesn't have to be a scientist to be convinced by the evidence. The signs are there and then we can look at the reports from the different scientists.

To deny the future so that we can live delusionally in the present shows the insanity of our times. That we so readily accept the sacrifice of nature and our descendants because we are too comfortable to change exhibits both a moral and mental insanity. Flat-earthers can be considered to be realists compared to those who reject the claim anthropogenic climate change is already taking place. And then we can add to that all of the scientists and scientific organizations that are acting as the prophets of today. And how all of that evidence does not give us pause over how our way of life contributes to climate change shows a pleasure first despite the promise of death in the near future.

We Americans should be ashamed of ourselves. Despite our educational system and how we view ourselves as the shining light on the hill example to the world, the call to panic by a 16-year-old Swedish girl shows just how non-existent our light to the world exists.