Friday, October 7, 2011

Something to think about

"We don't need to save the planet; the planet will survive without us. We need to save us." --Jeff Nesbit of Climate Nexus.
It's been slowly dawning on me over the last year or so that environmentalism and concern for human rights are not just linked, but integral to each other. How can you be concerned about people dying in wars and not people dying because of the chemicals in their water? Conversely, what is there to care about in rising ocean levels unless you realize that there are real people who will be impacted by that? Entire cities will be washed away like Atlantis. If you care about people and humanity, you have to care about the environment as well because they're two sides of the same coin. By bettering the environment we make life better for every person. Reducing pollution doesn't just help you, it also helps the kid with asthma up the street. It reduces the chances of your neighbors getting cancer. This really is a matter of human survival. Whether we win or not the planet will still be here, but I don't want to see what it would look like without our rich heritage of biodiversity. I don't want to know the kinds of health problems that would arise in a world taken over by toxic chemicals and pollution. That's what keeps these issues in the back of my mind when I make choices. To recycle or not to recycle?

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