Tag: pollution

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Time to Stop/Start

A lot of young millennials are out protesting and yelling at us ‘boomers’ about climate change. Pointing the finger at us and scolding and shaming us. Fine. Yes, we created problems. And yes, these problems are frighteningly real.

Every generation blames their parents for a bad world that they inherit. We got a mess from our parents, now you do too. There is always a big mess.

However, it is time to stop blaming us and take action, otherwise, you become just like us – endless talk and research and nothing gets done. It is time to mature and stop whining. It is my experience that protesting incites violence and results in minimal change.

If you want policy change, get in there, you are old enough to run for office. If you want a clean ocean, take a cue from Boyan Slat (The Ocean Clean Up), and get out there and clean it up! You want to protect the forests and wildlife – get out there and do it!

Your generation has many more opportunities, is much better educated than us, and has more innovative technology than we had. Just as we did beyond our parents generation. The best way to shame us is to do a whole lot better than we did with all the advantages we had.

Yes, there are very real problems and threats to our well being, there always has been, and yes it is a crisis. Stop yelling at us to fix it. Give us constructive workable solutions, like Boyan Slat (The Ocean Clean Up) and we can supply the money and experience. You have the imagination, innovation and energy.

Young and old, men and women and all cultures need to work together and create a great world to live in. Let’s work together. Stop ranting and start taking action. We will help.

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The Critics

When I first started publishing my own books, I had lots of people criticize my efforts.  People who seldom even wrote an e-mail and thought that was publishing, were telling me they never would have made the mistakes I made, or done it the way I did.  They judged my every decision as if they knew better than me.  I am glad I did not pay them much attention.

One of my heroes is now undergoing criticism and scrutiny and I hope he ignores it all.  Boyan Slat, is a 24 year young man attempting to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive expanse of mostly plastic flotsam covering an area the size of Texas.    https://www.theoceancleanup.com

This is a monumental undertaking.  The people who criticize the current systems failures have no idea what a formidable task this is, as huge and as complicated as going to the moon.  And like going to the moon, has never been done before.

The ocean is a hostile, massive, deep body of water, with incredible powerful forces.  This is not some environment you can write reports about and then everything will work fine. You have to get out there and experience it.  And this is what Boyan Slat is doing.

We need to encourage people like Mr. Slat that he should never give up.  We made it to the moon with far less technology and beyond.  We can now clean up our oceans and restore the world.  We can learn from our mistakes and revise and rebuild.  One day Mr. Slat will be the most celebrated hero of the day.

Critics forget, this has never been done before.  The only real way to make it work is to get it off the drawing board and go DO it.  President Kennedy realized the same truth about going to the moon.  We had to do it.  Not just talk and write science fiction about it.  The rubber has to meet the road.

Boyan Slat is my inspiration, an example of perseverance and resilience, doing something you and I could never do.  He has the right attitude – learn from the mistakes and the unexpected and revise and rebuild until it works.  We need to silence the critics.

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Stop Looking Backwards

I read an article this morning that helped me to understand what is happening in the United States today.

Automobile makers have been freed of emissions regulations and as a result have resorted back to producing big, heavy, gas guzzling, pollution spewing trucks and abandoning the production of cars.

It occurred to me then that Americans are pining for the past, the glory days of the 50’s and 60’s, when everything was big from hairdo’s to cars.   Middle class was rising and becoming wealthy.  The space age began.  There were big dreams and the economy was booming.  The world was large.

But that is the highlight reel.

Out of all the white middle class suburbia and glory came gory.

Racism.  Pollution.  Abuse.  To name only a few.

As we became aware of such things, and realized they were not good, we took steps to fix our messes and evolved to today.   I think a lot of stuff in the past was done in ignorance and innocence.  We were children then, but now we are adults.  No longer innocent or ignorant of our footprint on this world or our impact on the global stage.  We pay a huge price for our ways.  There are consequences to every action we take.

Todays world is a global community with no options for being isolationist any more.  We must learn how to get along and work towards common goals.  There is no room for dictators with selfish ambitions, we will all perish under such rulers.  Those days should be long behind us.

If we don’t pay attention to our carbon footprint on the environment we are out of time.  Where can we go if this world dies?

Forget Star Trek fantasies of the 60’s.  The universe is a hostile place and ginormous.  There are no planets with handsome men and bodacious women, breathable air and luxuries abounding.  You think we are going to flee to Mars or live in satellites where every day is a fight to stay alive?  We live on a beautiful planet, our only home.  There is no place else to go.  We can build huge rocket ships, but to go where exactly?  And who gets to go?  It only happens in science fiction novels.  It is not reality.  Forget escaping, we need responsibility.  We need to grow up.

The exception to our current giant steps backward is the MeToo movement, a huge step forward for women.  That is why I pin my hopes on women to save the world.  If we preserve our nurturing, loving nature and combine it with our new found confidence we could end racism, poverty, abuse, pollution and all ills of the world.

It is the bad things in life that make us aware of what we want the world to look like.  I am optimistic (though it wavers) – we usually, eventually, take responsibility to make things right again.  I did read a hopeful article that said the U.S. has survived many bad things and leaders and picked itself up and moved forward, and this gave me hope.  Yes, we can evolve but we have to stop looking backwards.  We can look at the crap and decide we’re not going there again.

Likewise, on a personal note, I too have to stop pining for the past and create a whole new me and life.

I think we all should.

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Sorry, I Can’t Read This Stuff Anymore. . .

I was given yet another book on the perils of pesticides and decided I can’t read this stuff anymore.

I have become saturated with news of all the harmful things we are doing to our environment and ourselves and it is overwhelming.  I get it already.  We need less reports and more action.

If you spend all your time researching bad things through the media; watching documentaries, listening to commentaries, reading books, you are slowly going to lose your mind.

I once knew a man who could no longer sleep because he got in the habit of watching the late news and took all that stuff to bed with him.  Such negativity can kill you – it almost killed him.

I go in the grocery store and my heart gets extremely heavy when I observe the rows and rows of chemically laden foodstuff and products we put on and in our bodies and into our environment.  I near collapse at the realization this is repeated hundreds of thousands of times over in all the stores in all the cities of the world.

Whoa.

I can’t handle all this.

Here is what I do know.  Pick one or two things you can DO something about and do it.  Be aware of other things, okay, but take ACTION on something.  Choose your battles.

Action does not have to be grand.  My elderly Mother was overwhelmed by all the charities vying for her support, until she took this advice.  She selected 2 charities and donated to them exclusively each month, and let go of all the others.  You cannot solve all the worlds problems.  Choose what matters most to you and take action.

If we each do a little, a lot gets done.

There are countless ways of taking action other than monetary to alleviate suffering.  Even just being nice once in a while.  A smile.  A compliment.  Holding a door.  Listening.

Or you can be more proactive; stop buying chemically laden products and supporting these industries that destroy your body and environment.  Read the labels.  I remember when flour was flour and cocoa, cocoa – not any more!

Action (oh how I hate to use this next word) trumps everything.

Doing a little will lighten your heart and the woes of the world. There are millions of us on this planet.  Imagine what could be accomplished if each one of us did something about one thing of our choosing, in any small way, all the time.  All the way from a favour to changing government policy.  Stop absorbing bad news and do something.

By the way – there is an equal, if not more amount of good news in this world, and a hefty dose of that each day will help you to take action to get rid of the bad.