Save Ourselves, Not The Planet!

Let’s Be Honest; We’re Trying to Save Ourselves….Not the Planet.

   Global warming. Clean water. Clean air. Recycling. Organic farming. Blah, blah, blah. We say we’re doing it all to “save the planet”, but I say that’s just a clever façade. Why can’t we just be honest and call a spade a spade?
   We’re in this for ourselves, not the planet.
   The late, great, comedian George Carlin did an entire bit on this particular perspective a while back and he really made some great points. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend viewing it in its entirety at The Fun Times Guide to Living Green. Of course it is George Carlin, so be prepared for some colorful expletives.
   At one point in the bit Carlin says,

“And the greatest arrogance of all…Save the Planet. What? Are these f*cking people kidding me? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet, we haven’t learned how to care for one another and we’re going to save the f*cking planet? I’m getting tired of that sh*t.”

   He goes on to drag a great many skeletons out of the closet and make a plethora of interesting points. I know, I know, isn’t this Green Lifestyle Magazine? Sure it is, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take an open-minded and introspective look at our own motives every now and then, does it?
   So what are we really after? Do we really care for the planet for the planet’s sake (and does it really need us to care for it at all?) or is it just the preservation of our own lifestyle and existence? Let’s play that out a little bit.
   Let’s say humanity is responsible for climate change, global warming, or whatever you want to call it. Let’s say that our earth warms, the icecaps melt, the seas rise, and another great ice age consumes the Earth. Let’s say that we pump so many chemicals, toxins, and carcinogens into the ground that we cease to be able to harvest, produce, or raise livestock that aren’t so contaminated that they make us chronically ill. Let’s say we so litter our planet with plastic bags and bottles, Styrofoam, heavy metals, and other trash that not a drop of clean water can be found on our little blue planet.
    What then?
   Humanity will cease to exist as we know it…but as Carlin reminds us, the Earth will remain.
   It will most likely right itself and overcome the damage we have done to it through our irresponsibility and eventually once again achieve a harmonious homeostasis…but we’ll be gone.
   When questioning Morpheus in the Matrix, Agent Smith says,

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment.

"But you humans do not. You move to an area and multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is

Issue 1 | September 2009

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consumed…and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human Beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."

   Are we really a plague to the Earth? Well, maybe so. Perhaps that’s what climate change is really about, the planet trying to rid itself of humanity.
   What if instead of trying to “save the planet”, we actually just attempt to live in harmony with it as all other animals do, as Agent Smith so aptly conveyed? Now there’s a goal I can get behind. Have you ever noticed how humanity always wants something to conquer? Whether it’s another people, group, or a problem that faces us, we have an unhealthy obsession with fighting against and imposing our will upon any situation we deem “bad”.
   Let me put it plainly: I don’t care about fighting global warming, climate change, clean water, clean air, or fighting for the salvation of any endangered species.
   I do, however, care about living in a way

 

 

that respects and enjoys the life all around me. If I really respected life, the whole of all things created, wouldn’t I naturally want to achieve harmony with that life?
   I’ve said for a long time that peace can never be the result of war. Why not? For the same reason that an apple tree can never produce an orange. Maybe by fighting against all these things we fear, needs saving? We are.
   So I’ll tell ya what. Let’s take on a little experiment. Instead of fighting against things you fear or even fighting for things you love, let’s see what happens if we stop fighting, and start enjoying. Enjoy life, enjoy nature, enjoy friends, family, and food. Maybe then we’ll start to naturally move back toward a place of balance with our world.
   Could it be that humanity has become like a 16-year-old teenager who is handed the keys to his first car without having to lift a finger to earn it? What happens to that teenager? He doesn’t value that car. He doesn’t respect it. He takes it for granted. He lets it get dirty and run down, and he doesn’t really think twice when he wrecks it, because mommy and daddy will buy him a new one.
   Contrast that to the teen who worked and saved and planned for that new car.  He loves it; he cherishes it. He takes care of it, and it takes care of him.

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   Maybe we’ve just begun to take our life on this planet for granted and what we need is to fall back in love with our life here. Now I’m not saying let’s all go hug a tree and munch on some granola, but just try disconnecting from your busy life and really take some time each day to sit back and enjoy the sights, the smells and the sounds around you. So far we haven’t been able to discover any life in the cosmos besides our own, yet we run it into the ground like a spoiled little teenager with a freshly printed driver’s license.
   Take some time to enjoy life and enjoy the world we live it in. And maybe, just maybe, everything else will take care of itself.
   But then, of course, I could be completely wrong and we’re all going down in flames anyway. Either way, I plan to enjoy the ride.

Jeffrey Davis is a personal fitness trainer in Nashville, as well as the co-founder and senior editor of The Fun Times Guide to Living Green where he writes about how simple, FUN, and easy it is to live green... because "eco-snobbery sucks." You can follow Jeffrey on Twitter for great fitness, green living, and other interesting tips or thoughts.