We need a culture revolution to save ourselves and the Earth
While it is easy to blame the leaders of government and big corporations for the gradual destruction of the Earth, they could not do it without us. Governments are rooted to some degree in the governed no matter how low the level of democracy is. Corporations cannot exist if we don’t buy their products or services. We are causing our demise with unsustainable behaviors and lifestyles. It’s the things we do that we think are OK, but aren’t that add up.
We have to use less energy.
Using cleaner energy will help and must be done, but will not save the Earth alone.
Although solar power is great, it isn't perfect. The materials for them have to be mined. Making the collectors has pollution by products. They eventually wear out and need to be disposed of. This creates pollution.
Wind generators have similar drawbacks while killing birds when in operation.
Electric vehicles have dubious value. They use energy created at power plants with losses to resistances in the power lines. The electrical power grids will have to be massively upgraded and expanded. Are there not better uses for the resources? Making batteries scars the land with mining and making them is a source of pollution. Spent batteries have to be dealt with. Whatever is done with them will have its pollution.
We have to change our ways. There is no easy technological way out.
To cut our energy use we must:
- Vote for and build mass transit and high-speed rail.
- Buy smaller and fewer vehicles.
- Drive a lot less. Every time we drive a vehicle it is a contribution to global warming and climate change. There are necessities to drive for, but there is much room for reducing what is unnecessary. We can reduce driving by planning many errands per trip. We can do things closer to home or at home. We can take vacations closer to home with more activities like hiking and biking.
- Minimize using motor boats. They get anywhere from less than a mile per gallon to only a few. Most boats are filthy two stroke outboard engines that burn oil with the gas and have no pollution controls. Boat parades are environmental disasters. They’ve had thousands of boats parade for Trump in many parades. Others are done for sports victories and holidays.
- Insulation, weather stripping and passive solar can be built into new buildings and added to existing structures.
- Deciduous trees can shade during the summer and let sun through after the leaves fall during the winter. This saves energy for buildings under them and cools roads and parking lots in summer. They also trap carbon dioxide and absorb rain. A massive national mobilization of tree planting by governments, corporations and private citizens must be done. In 2007, Under Mayor Bloomberg, New York City launched “Million Trees NYC” to plant one million trees in ten years. They did it in 8 years. This should be a beacon to the entire world for action over all the “blah, blah, blah”.
Grass lawns are a widespread environmental disaster.
Taking care of lawns requires lawn mowers that are usually filthy two-stroke engines that burn oil and gas together with no pollution controls. They are also a source of noise pollution that stresses humans and wildlife. Imagine weekends without the noise from lawnmowers!
Pesticides used on lawns kill wildlife and insects like Bees. Fertilizers run off and create algal blooms in lakes and rivers. These also pollute the underlying groundwater, making the local water unsafe to drink.
In Florida, runoffs are killing sea grass and that is starving record numbers of Manatees to death. Run off may also cause or aggravate Red Tide.
Lawns also drink up a lot of water.
Our eating habits are destroying the biosphere.
We eat far too much meat, dairy and eggs. American illnesses like heart disease, diabetes and obesity that are the highest in the world show the results of the Standard American Diet (SAD). Vegans prove that these foods aren’t necessary at all and they are a lot healthier. This burdens our healthcare system; is depleting the Medicare Trust Fund and causes loss of quality of life and premature death.
According to the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), about 1/3 of the Earth's forests have been eliminated by an explosion in grazing land and crop production. About a third of these crops are fed to livestock.
As the human population grows, deforestation is expanding to graze livestock and grow more food to feed them in factory farms. This is especially severe in Brazil’s Amazon rain forests. The Earth’s weather is already changing disastrously from what has already taken place.
The worst is yet to come from future deforestation. It must be stopped and reversed by changing diet to more or all eating of plants for protein.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), the animal agriculture sector produces almost 18%, or nearly one-fifth, of human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Farm animals vastly outnumber humans. They produce sewage many times more than human sewage, but only human sewage must legally be treated. Factory farm sewage is untreated. It is evaporated or stored in retention ponds often leaching into the water table or leaking into rivers that lead to the ocean creating “dead zones” where oxygen is so low marine creatures cannot survive. There is a massive expansion of “dead zones” especially around the mouth of the Mississippi river.
These factory farms and the Standard American Diet (SAD) that supports them involve more evils that are beyond the environmental scope of this article, like the massive use of antibiotics and growth hormones; the illnesses caused and the obscene treatment of the food animals that are as intelligent and sensitive as dog and cats. There will be a follow-up article about these from www.vegansalvation.com.
Human activities are intensifying destructive forces like drought, flooding, tornadoes, windstorms and melting polar caps. Blaming the government or the corporations is not enough. We must control them through political action, our behavior and our spending power. We also need to change our habits to save life on Earth.