Forget the Planet - One: Save Yourself!

(First of seven related posts)

I have come to a realization. We don’t need to worry about the environment.

It’s a waste of time. Despite what Al Gore says, we don’t have to do anything about global warming. Sure, we might be poisoning the oceans, mindlessly spewing out hydrocarbons at a rate sufficient to increase the average temperature of the oceans and atmosphere, destroying species all over the planet and generally creating a huge mess.

But why get in an uproar about it? Human beings are just like raccoons. What we don’t tear up, we **** on. It’s our true nature, and we learned it the old fashioned way – from our genes – so why change?

We should respect Mother Nature and leave well enough alone. Our self destructive behaviors are built into us by millions of years of evolution - or by God’s will - depending on your point of view.

Either way, isn’t it a little arrogant to think we know better?

We are going out of our way to make room for every little tree frog and salamander on the verge or going extinct, but what about us?

After all, we’re an endangered species too. We are overpopulating the planet at an incredible rate. We have dumped enough sewage, fertilizer and chemicals into the oceans to poison one of our main sources of food. If the way we eat, the air we breath, the stress we feel, and the way we get to work don’t kill us, then the booze and drugs will.

We keep spending the biggest part of our national budgets on ways to kill people while our children starve. There are enough nuclear weapons in the hands of the world’s power mad - and often moronic - politicians to reduce most of us to radioactive slag at any moment.

How can you get any more endangered?

GOOD STEWARDS?

And let’s be honest. What’s the point of trying to teach the human race to be good stewards of a whole planet? Most of us can’t even be good stewards of our own front yards. A significant percentage of us can’t remember to zip up our flies after urinating. At any given moment, millions of Americans are stumbling around trying to remember where they left their cell phones, wallets or car keys.

Are we a species that should really be given responsibility for the incredibly complex ecosystems of a whole world? I think not.

Why are all these environmentalists trying to teach us how to care about the planet? Can’t they see what’s going on in their own neighborhoods? Most people don’t care about neighbors half way down the block.

Millions of us can’t take care of our own children or aging parents. So I think all these tree huggers and doomsayers need to take a Xanax and relax. I’m not saying we aren’t bringing on our own doom, but talking about it is such a downer. I’m a positive thinker and believe we should look at the sunny side.

Maybe we are leaving a nasty mess for our children and grandchildren, but we have cleaned up after them our whole lives. It’s only fair they take a turn.

And face it. The environment will be just fine no matter what we do. After all, to our planet - which IS the environment as far as we are concerned – any fluctuations caused by arrogant overpopulating primates like us will likely cause nothing more than a global case of hiccups.

Life’s been around on this planet a very long time and such hiccups have happened many times before , some of them leading to the majority of species on earth becoming extinct. But after a few tens of thousands of years, things always turn out to be just fine on this planet.

So I am not worried about the environment at all. I think I’ll go buy a Hummer, toss my beer bottle in the river, and gobble down a double meat fast food cheeseburger injected with synthetic hormones.

Then just for fun, I’m going to Wal-Mart and buy a case of gallon size plastic baggies. I’ll fill them with Freon and methane, float them out my window, and see if I can create my own hole in the ozone layer.

I need a tan and those tanning salons are so pricey.

After that, I plan to pull all the plastic milk bottles out of our recycling bin, fill them with gasoline and start a fire in a rain forest.

Everything on earth, the entire vast complex of interdependent living systems we call the biosphere, is really just pond scum on the thin crust of a tiny planet orbiting an insignificant sun in the boonies of a remote galaxy amongst billions of others.

If you look at the big picture, a nuclear holocaust here on earth would be about as significant in the big picture as a flea burping in China.

So we can quit worrying, because there is no risk whatsoever that we are going to hurt the environment.

Forget the Planet - Two is here: