Remember: Mother Nature always wins. It might take her 100 years, it might take her 1,000 years, or it might take her millions of years. She always wins, though, and she does not care what destruction and havoc mankind wreaks. You cannot beat her if you try to fight her and take advantage of her. If you hurt her she will hurt you back a thousandfold. She has all the time in the world and she honestly does not care about the human race at all.
Some of us pretend to really care about climate change and the environment while most of us refuse to believe or deny that there is really any problem at all. The deniers, and there are millions of them, and the unconcerned, of which there are billions, do not understand and do not care to understand. They care about the here and now, not 100 years in the future, which is the amount of time necessary to undo the damage that we have wrought, and that is only after we have begun to “turn it around.” Even the politicians who profess to be concerned about climate change, etc., are so beholden to the polluters of this world that their words and promises are empty.
We are all familiar with her various forms of revenge: more severe droughts and famine, more vicious wildfires, warming oceans with rising seas, polluted water and air, more devastating hurricanes and tornados, rising temperatures, species extermination, etc. We have inflicted her revenge upon ourselves. What we do not take into consideration is her more subtle forms of attempting to correct our mistakes and indifference. The extinction of species and the resulting damage to the biodiversity of the earth is the most dangerous revenge and probably the most subtle sign is a decrease, eventually, in the human population, which is her attempt at instituting corrections.
Already the population replacement rate in the USA is at about 1.7. A 2.1 rate is required to maintain the population. Only immigration has previously sustained the replacement rate and that is pretty much at a standstill these days. As the population decreases there should be less pollution, famines, etc. and a more sustainable approach to existing in harmony with Mother Nature. Whether this decrease and a subsequent decrease in the GDP and economy, along with an increase in sustainable practices and technology, is enough to reverse her destruction remains to be seen. Humans have a lot of work cut out for themselves and it will only become more difficult with time.
Now, if you are smart you can use Mother Nature to your advantage and she will be happy to accommodate you as long as you do not take advantage of her. She will provide you with limitless energy and resources, bountiful food supplies, and a very habitable environment. Just do not overextend your welcome. Manage your populations, your coexistence with other species, and your consumption of the earth’s resources and she has no problems. If you are rapacious, though, she will not hesitate to destroy you and when she is feeling destructive it can be terrifying.
Which brings us to the question: Do you want to bring children into this world if we are unwilling to change our ways and Mother Nature’s climate changes create an environment that is basically uninhabitable? The deniers and the unconcerned (in other words, most of us) have no problem with this issue, in which case it will therefore be up to Mother Nature to contain these damages and “watch” as populations dwindle. After all humans are only one of tens of millions of species. If it takes her 1 billion years to recreate the earth again as we know it then so be it. Figure that she has another 4.5 billion at her disposal (the number of years left before the earth dies out according to scientists) so 1 billion is plenty of time.
Leaving solutions to future generations after it is too late does not work. Therefore we have three basic options at this time for confronting climate change: 1.) do nothing and care about nothing, which is pretty much what we are doing now in spite of the rhetoric, 2.) change our attitudes half-heartedly, which is pretty much what the Paris Accords are about, or 3.) take a huge hit economically but salvage everything we can in order to allow future generations the chance to learn and survive.
That the nation and world are divided on this issue is obvious. Even those of us who pound our chests and demand that something be done burn fossil fuels, dump our trash into the environment, release methane into the atmosphere, and burn our resources to excessive ends. What is mystifying is that these are the people who care. Most people do not care at all, including politicians, and do not believe in or understand what scientists are telling us. It is this division that will impede all progress and doom us to the whims of Mother Nature.
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