I want to say that I'm one of those "nuts" that believes in saving the environment and everything living IN it if humanly possible, okay? I have sent signatures, donations, letters, all sorts of stuff to support saving the rain forests, owls, wolves, a LOT of natures miracles over the years, but here's the thing...Until and unless we, as a planet, find SOME way to significantly slow the growth of US, I'm afraid that everything else is going to suffer for us being here. Now, there is technically plenty of land available for everyone, just some places are not one's first choice, but COULD be made habitable, like they did for Las Vegas and a LOT of California, so space isn't the issue. What unfortunately IS the issue is that we aren't creating artificial building materials fast enough to replace wood, and we can't develop other sources of energy fast enough to save a LOT of real estate...I mean ocean space, forests, ice fields, etc. that flora and fauna alike NEED for their survival.
The cold hard truth is, for right now, there are hard choices being made. Yeah, are SOME resources being taken or animals killed for no real reason and could be avoided? Absolutely. BUT there are just a finite number of places that can be mined for fossil fuels, and that sucks, truly. If I could have three wishes, one would be that we could all magically be able to afford electric cars AND that the power would already be available to power them. That is NOT going to happen, not in MY lifetime, for sure, but I'm 60, so maybe not TOO long a wait. Even IF they GAVE everyone an electric car today for free, we don't have the power to fuel them at this point. I don't know HOW they missed THAT little problem before they started pushing them on us. They don't seem to have a clue how this will work. They are still trying NOT to have rolling blackouts around the country just to supply HOUSES with adequate electricity. Now electricity takes either coal or wind to create, so that is not the primary reason I'm here today. The reason is because of the cars we have RIGHT NOW. It is a sad truth that we need oil, and a sadder truth is that it isn't always located in convenient places. Sometimes, and the more we use up, the more this is true, it is located in the middle of nowhere. And the middle of nowhere is where most animals try to live, as far from US as possible (can you blame them?) Now, I have just read that Canada, in an effort to find more oil "locally" so we can tell the Middle Eastern suppliers to take a giant leap, is going to be killing off thousands of wolves in the area in which they'll be looking. Reading this put a giant knot in my stomach and made me want to strap on winter wear and get up there to protest, but this stopped me...Say I'm a person with a family (more sympathetic that a single old lady), and I need gas (therefore crude oil) to get to my miserable little job to feed and clothe my family. Okay, so I have a choice, and think about this...I realize this is not unlike "Sophie's Choice" here, but this is what it comes down to...which is more important to me, my family and literally their lives, OR the wolves? Sucks, huh?? But that is where the world is now. I want to save every single living creature and plant on this pathetic blue planet, and if I could give my life so that could happen, I would happily do it, but it won't. In this system of things, and by that, I mean the pre-Armageddon and new Eden (ask me if you're interested), these are the choices we're having to make. AND if we have to choose our families before, say in this case, the Canada wolves, which would we choose for them? Poison/ a merciful bullet, OR slow starvation? Hunters have been culling the deer, elk and moose populations forever, and the survivors are better for it, basically. I realize it's not natural selection we're talking about here, but rather unnatural selection. We were supposed to, if you're a Creationist, all be able to share the planet without problems like this, and if you're an Evolutionist, aren't you disappointed we haven't solved this problem yet?
It's simply a cold, hard fact that we are going to have to either kill or move some animals so that we can keep going, at the least until we solve this energy crisis. What I'm hoping is that science keeps viable embryo's of everything we are killing off right now so that once we HAVE whipped the issues of power AND population control, we can bring back everything we have/will destroy. We owe nature, at the VERY least, that much. There are few things more beautiful than seeing wolves in the wild, playing in the snow, totally free, but at the price of what? We demand that the industrial community fix things so that these, and other animals don't die, and we should. BUT, unfortunately, they can't do it overnight. Major changes, whether by us or nature, move pretty much on what I call "Glacier time", which is SLOW, and that is just how it is. Some things, like natural changes and scientific breakthroughs (and the PAYOFF from same) take time, lots of it.
Sometimes I wish this planet would shake mankind off of it like the destructive fleas that we are, and it probably will at some point,(this is a WHOLE different blog) but until then... What are we supposed to do? Be real, and honest. Real solutions to real big problems are NOT instantaneous, or pain free, sorry. Should someone have been working on this a LOT sooner? Yeah, but it still doesn't change the fact that we need what we do. So, who's it going to be? Where would you suggest they look for oil and natural gas? In your literal backyard, where your children are? Probably not. Would you leave your home to move to wherever was more convenient so that an oil rig could be put where your household is right now? Doubtful. We need to spend more time and money working on alternate methods of getting to the fuels without disturbing nature. THAT is what your new cause should be. Maybe we should stop saying DON'T GO THERE and start working on STEP CAREFULLY, huh?
Just thinkin' out loud here,
Dragonfly
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