OUR HARD CHOICE

When the human race is faced with a choice of doing what is right or what is easy... I find that we much to often take the easy path to avoid the hardships of the right choices. It is in our nature to only deal with the “here and now” and ignore the more pressing issues that will determine the fate of our species. In the meantime, while we are making these easy choices, we hope and pray that the consequences of these decisions will not be severe enough that we won’t be able to overcome them. We treat our fragile future like a simple card game, thinking that we might have some really good cards but not knowing what lies in our opponent’s hand. So we take bets and hope that we come out on top, ignoring every single warning sign that our opponent is in fact, not bluffing. We tend to talk about problems that are facing us as a society but this most important conversation usually just ends up going nowhere. Talk without the prospect of action is the Washington Way. Our government's lack of inaction brought on by the billions of dollars spent by corporations to keep us in a state of utter confusion has caused a serious stalemate on some of the most important issues to face this planet.
Most people know that one of my best friends on this planet is a nature loving, wolf protecting, deer feeding, liberal tree hugger and I wouldn’t have her any other way! Summer is a student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale majoring in Zoology and Environmental Studies. She has played a major influence on how I view the environment and she is the reason why I turn off the water while I’m brushing my teeth. I estimate that her constant nagging on this topic has saved more than 6,000 gallons of water over the past few years and I do mean this in the most literal sense. Summer recently wrote a piece discussing the dilemma so many of us face: What else can we do to protect this Earth without giving up the basics of human survival that we have become so spoiled too? Electricity, coal, oil, even our homes are created by the destruction of trees, mountains, oceans, and land. It’s a simple fact that it’s almost impossible to protect the environment without some type of major sacrifice on the part of the human species. So the only clear answer here is to find a balanced solution. A balance between the organic and the technological aspects of our lives.
I don’t know what this balance could be and I know it’s not going to be discovered overnight, but I do know that we must start making choices now that will lead us to the environmental promise land. Choices that will take us another step closer to a solution to the global ecological crisis. There are powerful individuals that resist the prospect of change and they continue to throw their support behind the status quo which only serves their own political agendas. Each of us need to start taking an active part in this environmental crisis and that begins with small individual changes to a full grassroots political front that will change the inaction of Washington D.C. The clock is ticking and our time is running out.
My fear is that we will continue to lack the political motivation to deal with the hardships of the right choice and as time goes on, the era of quick fixes will continue. This is an scenario of the future that I see on our current path and it’s a future that scares me: The oil rich countries of the Middle East announce that the billions upon billions of barrels of oil that we have relied upon for decades is coming to an end. Less produce has driven the world markets into a fiscal crash causing international conflicts throughout the globe. In response to the global crisis and the propaganda created by the oil companies, the United States announces new drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve to keep the cost of oil down along with several new drills throughout the country and seaboards. These corporations will manipulate public opinion and make the masses believe that opening the ANWR will be the answer in solving the global economical meltdown. Environmentalist will cry foul but their cries will be overshadowed by the fact that our human nature gravitates towards the quick fix and the corporate propaganda machine will have their way once again; for they will be the only ones to profit from this disaster.
They will argue that opening the ANWR will give the time to come up with an alternate solution but the procrastination that we are seeing at this very moment in history will also take place throughout any future drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve. We must take action now to prevent corporations from using these “backup plans” that will only leave our planet more devastated even if it means choosing between the lesser of two evils. We’re not going to be able to save everything and we are going to continue to damage some aspects of the environment with our waste but we can choose a path that will lead us in finding a solution and a balance between the environment and technology. We can either prevent or delay a global meltdown by making the right choices now and leaving behind the oil reliance society that we have become. To do this requires a sense of urgency without an impending global disaster, walking away from the political stalemates of our governments and the agendas of self interest groups. Joining together now in action will make all the difference in saving this planet. The choice is yours.