House of Eratosthenes

For thousands of years, humankind fixated on some near-future date, at which point the deity of your choice was supposed to have scheduled the end of everything. Such dates kept passing and the end times kept not-happening.

And then…I think, for I wasn’t there…this all changed. I think it was The War To End All Wars. So, beginning of last century, we were to misbehave in some way and deprive the earth of its natural capacity to sustain us. This was a change in bearing; before, it was the gods who predestined our closure, and afterward it was to be our own bad behavior bringing about an entirely preventable event. It was the Age of Urgent Warnings, which still has yet to close. Ehrlich’s Population Bomb came out a good fifty years after this, so he didn’t start the fetish although he made a good deal of fame and fortune from it. Oppenheimer’s device made the dire prognostication much more convincing. The brink! The brink! We have to retreat from the brink!

When the communists switched from hot wars to propaganda as their tools of trade, Americans, who thought they’d defeated the scourge for good, were swamped with TogetherWeCanDoThis agitprop. Being a proud people with good hearts, they generally took this as benign advice on how to be good stewards of the earth. There arose a common theme: If you change your household management and consumer behavior, it may seem like a negligible effect, but imagine the cumulative result of all of us doing it. We can save the planet! So recycle!

And…get you some new light bulbs with mercury powder on the inside, that create a hazardous spill site if they ever shatter. Multi-use heavy plastic grocery bags. Paper straws. Electric cars. If you want to keep your gas-powered car, all sorts of new gizmos and doodads under the hood for “environmental regulations” that wear out & kick on your check-engine light…just when you thought you were about to have all your bills paid.

TogetherWeCanDoThis!! Toad tunnels under the freeway so the frogs don’t get run over by the cars when they cross. Little tiny trampolines under the trees so the squirrels don’t hurt themselves when they fall. It’s the only planet we have!

Surcharges built into everything. Sweet, sweet surcharges. Upon your power bill, your gas bill, your water bill, your sewage bill, your cable television bill…America has become the perfect mixing pot for communism and capitalism. We promote the communism, being very careful to never use the actual word, and then we use it to rake in the moolah making just a few people fabulously wealthy, at the expense of everyone else. Interesting. It’s exactly the opposite result from what communism is supposed to achieve. With capitalism as the tool. But it isn’t really capitalism if we didn’t order it; we’re just repeatedly falling for it.

I don’t want to save this planet anymore.

I’ve already done my bit. I’ve monitored the situation. Behind every battle-cry of TogetherWeCanDoThis, someone’s after my wallet. And it’s not escaped my notice, that while they’re in the process of draining the fruits of my labors and my savings…they’re not being any kinder to the planet than I am.

I’m afraid to tabulate the total that I’ve spent, voluntarily and otherwise, to save the planet. I wouldn’t even know how to start. But I’m done. Shouldn’t we be thinking about other planets, if we’re so forward-thinking? If this one requires any more saving, seems to me that’s like the sopping-wet fire log that requires just a bit more lighting. But did it ever need any saving in the first place? We’re still here. It isn’t because we’re using heavier grocery bags. Those are disposable now, so with that effort alone, we’re clogging up the landfills five times faster than we did before. There’s no defending that boondoggle, and yet, no one’s stepping up to apologize or to chart a 180 degree change in course.

I don’t want to save this planet. I want to save my billfold.

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I Don’t Want to Save This Planet AnymoreTuesday, November 28th, 2023

I Don’t Want to Save This Planet Anymore
Tuesday, November 28th, 2023