There was an environmental magazine piece that I read years ago that really stuck in my head.
It was an interview with some guy who was supposed to be an expert on something.
Though I forgot the guy's name what he said really made an impression.
What he said was this: That Earth does not need to be saved.
It is human civilization that is in danger of being destroyed with the all the environmental destruction that's going on.
The Earth can handle itself, but we need to save our own skin.
I realized that was true.
With all of the environmental slogans and campaigns that have been going around lately and with all of the advocacies that we have been getting, we always hear the need for saving the planet.
We are told that the planet is dying and that we have to act now.
Don't get me wrong because I'm not saying that being environmentally conscious is not right and admirable.
I believe that going green is in fact one of the few things that is really worth spending my time on.
What I am saying is that we are giving the campaign a serious mislabelling.
We really can not destroy the planet even if we wanted to because we simply have not reached that point of technological development.
When I say destroy I'm referring to science fiction movie level of destruction, where the planet can be blown to smithereens.
Even if we detonate all of the nuclear warheads in the world at the same time the planet will not be destroyed.
Sure it is going to look horrible and its look is going to be changed.
It's going to be pockmarked with craters, but it would still go on spinning around the sun as if nothing has happened.
We can't blow it up.
It's going to be a different story for humans and all other life forms on earth though.
If we happen to do that and blow all the thermonuclear warheads that we've been storing for so long, then you can bet your neck that no one's going to be left behind to write about it.
The only thing that would be left would probably be a few bacteria or tadpoles, but if any human being survives such a holocaust they sure won't last that long.
So what's the point? It's that we should stop saying that we should save the earth like the fate of the planet is in our hands.
No, it is not because the planet is not in any danger from us.
What we are endangering with the reckless way that we are using our resources and the careless way that we treat our environment is human civilization.
We are slowly killing ourselves and that is what we need to realize.
It is our own skins that are on the line here.
We can't all be like Thoreau who lived in the outdoors living off the land and using up only what we need, but we have to start acting smart.
We have to stop killing ourselves.
We need to go environmental now.