Artistic Footprint

No one can deny that the world is always in transition. The ominous prospect of death and destruction has been side by side with  man since the beginning of history. But perhaps this is the first time the Earth has been in transition in the modern world. Scientists and protection agencies will tell you that the polar frontiers are melting, that the ocean is acidic, that species are disappearing like they know something we don’t. Religious leaders would only suggest that this is not our doing but a divine plan to save mankind from the plight of this testing ground which is shockingly correct. Skeptics will tell you that this is whole thing is a load of bullshit – that people are being tipped off to sell you things, that the world is too huge for humans to tamper with it’s balance. All points in the spectrum are correct to a certain degree, and it’s all up to what you believe.

Here’s what I believe, and my bias comes from having remembered what the world looked and felt like when I was a kid compared to now. I don’t know if any of you remember this, but winters were cold and summers were hot and we learned to enjoy both. Going out and experiencing the power of the Earth was an adventure, and seeing how we could handle it was empowering. Nowadays we are removing ourselves from our natural surroundings with air conditioners, antibacterial soaps, synthetics, and sealed doors. I often hear people comment angrily on the weather as if it had to adhere to their comforts. I have seen snow-less winters and budding flowers on the shores of Lake Ontario in January. I have seen forest fires react to an unseen fuel type and been in summers that simply cannot be survived without some sort of invention. At the very least I have shown interest in the speeches and data from environmental scientists. Climate change, to me, is real.

An interesting perspective has begun to hinder the efforts of conservation. The largest concept of Skepticism says that we are being sold “green” things because “being green” is the new “being cool” – and most of these trinkets and inventions are not green at all, just scams and money-makers. They are totally correct. We buy new more fuel efficient cars and then send our old ones to rust in the scrapyard.  Perhaps they’ve seen the numbers and became so scared that they put on a pair of glasses that dummied the data so that they could sleep at night. I have three questions for skeptics: how do you sell the idea of buying less? Whats wrong with being environmentally conscious? And hasn’t this happened before?

Consider for example, the Great Plague of London. the “Black Death” took 100,000 lives. I perceive this as London, the capitol of an island; consider it a closed ecosystem invaded by a foreign vector. Humans died at a rate up to 7000 every week because the city was overcrowded, poorly equipped, and had no management between waste and produce. The city could not quarantine itself. I wasn’t until the great fire of London in 1666 was the plague considered gone. Afterwards London created something greater than time or steam locomotion – The sewage system.

So what do we do when we hit the fence? Our resources deplete at the same time our population is at record high. The plague happens. A deteriorating species becomes weak and vulnerable and bacteria takes over. We will never actually see the end of the world. Lets just assume that climate change can happen. What would the world be like? My darkest nightmares are a colourless sky that casts its grey on the scorched Earth stuck in the last days of autumn. The reassuring trickle of a stream or the chirp of a bird is long gone. Now remember the worst day you ever had. Maybe your dog died. And now imagine your dog dying and no one was there to give you a hug, you couldn’t go outside and be alone to think or smell the home she used to be in. You couldn’t talk about it to anyone because they’re all just as depressed as you are. That to me is the Earth without her beauty.

There is no end of time, that’s why they call it never. So at some point our species must end, because unfortunately death happens to everything and we shouldn’t want it any other way. What we do have control over is when. And we need to approach this perspective as a system. First is Awareness, which most of us already have. Then Acceptance. We cannot deny that we are no different than any other animal and when given the choice we will take more than we need. Now we Know what our problems are – and here’s the kicker, we have the advantage of a brain that is so powerful it takes half our energy to fuel it. We are smart enough to outsmart ourselves. Here’s what we have figured out: We have a lot of people and there’s still more to come. We cannot survive without the resources of Earth. We need to feed those people and find them homes and a “human” living….. How do we do that?

Action: We have genetically modified our foods, we have invented “free” energy through constant renewable sources, we have created a capitalist market based on being efficient. We have designed self-sustainable systems and technologies that exemplify human intuition. But more than anything, we need to redefine “being green” with just plain old “consuming less.” If we all just loved what we had and loved what we did, we’d have half as much junk. Don’t supersize, don’t drive where you can walk, don’t buy what you don’t need. Learn how things work and fix them yourself. Don’t buy into the gimmicks of being green when you don’t understand exactly how it is better for your environment. And most importantly, Appreciate. Appreciate what you have and know what it’d be like without it. Take a second to look beyond the windshield and skyline and actually see the surrounding nature. If we can do all these things, our pride and quality would skyrocket and maybe we’d get to stretch that timeline a little farther.