I can't be the only one who is mystified to the point of cynical about the constant and plentiful written and spoken references to impending 'disaster for the planet' and the urgent need to 'save the planet.' It's not that I don't think, feel and know that the human race appears to be 'hell' bent on a one race race to do as much damage as possible to the planet in the shortest amount of time since our time began. Is anybody in any doubt about that?
It's just that the idea of 'planetary disaster' and the need to 'save the planet' seems to be missing the (very obvious) point. It's not only factually inaccurate, as far as I can tell, it's actually the greatest fallacy of modern times. And if that ain''t enough, the messages are largely falling on deaf ears and closed minds anyway.
Ultimately I'm an optimist (actually I'm more of a hopeful idealist) and I've lived long enough to have started to learn that nobody really knows much about anything at all - including, or especially, what will or won't happen in the future. But that's not my point. My point is: assuming the worst case scenario, who is actually facing disaster and therefore needing saved, the planet or the people on the planet?
I'm not a betting man, merely an occasional and amateur flutterer, but my money would be on planet earth to be around longer than the human race. As far as I can tell, the worst we can do is damage the planet up to the point where it is at least in danger of no longer being able to sustain human life. If or when that were to happen, commonsense, rather than scientific theory, tells me that it would then be the human race that was facing 'disaster' and not the planet.
Call me a naive old hippy. Tell me we're the human 'race', and the race may be about to end. Tell me anything in between. But don't try and tell me that the human race today are any less inclined to want to ensure the 'survival of the species' that at any other time in our existence. As far as I'm aware, the human race can't survive in isolation from the very thing that keeps us alive: planet earth and the atmosphere.
If that's the truth, then what's with the government and the media?
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I totally AGREE - people are always banging on about saving the planet, meaning preserving the planet so the human race isn't wiped out - particularly in relation to climate change.
That is probably way too harsh and I know there are hundreds (thousands?) of people who work to halt environmental degredation for the sake of plants and animals.
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