Should You Be Stockpiling Dental Floss?

Today is Blog Action Day. Over 7000 bloggers around the world are participating. It is organized by www.change.org Visit their site to read what others are saying. Here are my 2 cents.

During the summer of 2008 we were very concerned that our pond was going to dry up completely. 3 weeks ago it overflowed 2 times. It has been so wet recently we have mushrooms growing out of our garage door. And this is historically the driest time of the year for us here in Georgia. In California earlier this year fires destroyed farms. Now torrential rain and hurricane force winds are damaging crops. In South Dakota 2 feet of snow in already on the ground and in other parts of the midwest constant rain is keeping farmers from harvesting their crops. They are greatly concerned the crops will rot in the fields. This summer in the northeast unusually cool moist weather helped to spread a devastating disease through their tomato fields.

Is all this a result of global climate change caused by human activity? I have no idea. Could it be? I think so. Farmers and gardeners depend on historical climate patterns to know when to plant, how long it will take for a crop to mature, when it can be harvested. Yes it is true that we have always complained that is is too hot, or too cold or too wet or too dry. However, if climatologists are correct in their predictions that we will see major changes in the weather patterns, farmers will have an increasingly harder time doing their jobs of feeding an exploding population.

Mother Nature could not care less whether or not Homo sapiens continues to exist on the planet. Look what happened to the dinosaurs. The earth will continue on with or without us. The goal of every species is to perpetuate itself. Our actions seem to suggest that we might be the exception to that rule. Do we, as a species, have the collective will to do what is necessary to perpetuate ourselves? I'm skeptical. If we don't, many more of our kind will suffer great hardship than already are. In the world of privilege in which we (Americans) live, we want to maintain our quality of life. In much of the world people just want to be able to survive from one day to the next with the hope that their lot will improve in the future. It is up to us to make the hard choices so that can happen.

We chose not to have children back in the 70's partly because we felt that the future was not too bright. There were dire predictions of the population explosion that would result in global starvation. Environmental degradation would cause great calamity etc. Mostly, our generation ignored all that. We could have done something then to avoid the situation we are in now. We failed to do so. My fear is that we will collectively continue on with our heads in the sand until major shit hits the fan. I hope that is not true. I am around many young people through the various groups in which I am involved. Many young people take my classes on organic gardening. I always tell them that they must get directly involved in politics if we are to set things right. It is not enough to vote for a candidate who sort of believes what we believe then try to convince them after they are elected to pass the appropriate laws and promote the correct policies. That is not working. We need our people to be senators, governors, city councilers, county commissioners, PSC commissioners, Secretaries of Agriculture, Health, Energy. The people who hold these positions have the power to make the changes necessary to insure a bright future for human kind or not. Should we continue to collect rainwater, use energy efficient light bulbs, plant gardens, weatherize our houses? Certainly so, but that is not enough.

I'm going to buy some dental floss now, just in case.
Thanks Joya!