EchoD

Before I dive into this, allow me to make a few things clear. I’m an omnivore. If you choose not to eat meat, good for you. I’ll have an extra burger, hot dog, steak, or slab of ribs on your behalf. If you’re overly conscious about being green and go out of your way to negate your carbon footprint, congratulations. If I were to attempt that, I’d head out into the middle of nowhere and live off the land. Instead, I’m going to rant about it and change nothing. Why? Because nobody reads this. My opinion isn’t going to mean shit.

On with the ramble!

Every now and again I look around and see just how much we humans destroy everything we encounter. It’s to a point where many believe we have changed the climate across the globe. We shape rivers and streams in order to direct them where we need them, or to get them out of our way. We dam them up to produce electricity, reservoirs, and inhabitable land. If that’s not an option, we simply relocate enough earth to create a new lake.
We do this for convenience.

We level entire forests for building materials, fuel, or simply because it’s in our way. We destroy the habitats of thousands of creatures simply… for our convenience. We tunnel through mountains because we don’t want to go over or around. We detonate whole regions to collect hardened chunks of carbon. We drill holes and suck wells dry.
We do this for our convenience.

We hunt creatures until they no longer exist because we desire their muscle, flesh, and fur. We do this after we have eaten our fill for entertainment and vanity.

There are few creatures in the world who actually shape their environment. Fewer who do it simply because they can. But, it’s what we do. We research, we develop new technologies, we examine every quark of our surroundings — all for our convenience. Automobiles, natural gas heating, air conditioning, television, radio, Internet… these aren’t necessities, these are conveniences of modern technology.

Some have claimed that we will terraform Mars within the century so we can begin to settle there. A clean slate, a new world to destroy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love modern technology. It’s my hobby, my vocation, and my passion. I enjoy the luxuries technology provides. The ease of transportation and communication, and the various forms of entertainment provided by the same technologies. I’m not about to throw everything I enjoy away, and I’m not asking anybody else to do it either. But, some nights I sit outside and think about the world around me. I look at the sky and the stars, and think about how miraculous and beautiful it all is. I look at everything around me — the plants, animals, life in general — and think about how improbable it all is. This is nature, pure and simple, not a god. We haven’t pissed anything off, we’ve simply changed nature — and unless we do something about it, we’ll have changed it enough that it may no longer support human life. At least not at its current capacity.

Think about it. Go outside on a clear night and look up at the sky. Ponder how far away those points of light are. Consider how unnatural the red and blue flashes are as planes fly over head. Stare in awe as bats, blind as they are, track down mosquitoes — just as the mosquitoes are drawn to the carbon-dioxide you exhale, how they siphon your blood to continue their existence just as we change the world to make ours more convenient.

Think about it.
I don’t ask you to change anything, just think about it.