Clean-up

Every week i have a clean slate that confronts my nimble fingers.  Some days i come here prepared to discourse on some aspect of humanity that we can all work at and other days i’m left wondering how i’ll tie together a vague notion i’ve been mulling over but haven’t quite formalized.

This week cleaning up has been front and center in my brain. Cleaning is something we all have to deal with, whether it’s our bodies, our environment, our mind or our lives.  We all clean something. We all notice immediately when cleaning up the muck in and around our home,our bodies and our minds makes a difference. Cleaning can do wonders for our psyche, our health, and our relationships. When you’ve finished cleaning and everything is sparkling it makes you feel good.

Lately i’ve been thinking about our environment and what filthy creatures we humans are.  All over the world every community has to deal in some way with our accumulated garbage, our sewage, and the pollutants that we spew into the air. 

If you are out and about take a minute to examine the town you live in; you will quickly discover and come in contact with our refuse.  It is unavoidable; whether it is the smoke coming out of the car in front of you, the litter in the gutters, the dumpsters on the sides of the road, the pollution in the air, the stinky smells or even just the clutter in your car...you will find our dirty behavior staring back at you.

Our mess is everywhere.  Companies spew clouds of gases into our air all day and all night.  Cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes spread contaminants, tractors spread pesticides, and we personally contribute with our technological must haves and our food packaging that must get discarded after use.

i do believe most of the world’s religions have some guidelines that tell us to be stewards of the earth, or put another way, responsible caretakers of this spinning planet.  When you look around it is easy to see that some of us are better than others at keeping their own private spaces clean, but when it comes to the entire world or even just your local town we all get a big fat F.

The conversation to date has restricted our failure to clean up after ourselves to a debate between two camps.  One camp believes humans and their effluent are having a negative impact upon the earth and its climate while the other camp believes what is being observed is normal and natural and the earth will take care of itself.  

The “debate,” if you can even call it that, has produced a mass of confusion for the ordinary human being going about their daily existence.  Alarming treatises on “rules that would undermine economies, destroy jobs, close down companies and entire industries, impoverish families and communities, roll back personal freedoms and civil rights – and enrich the lucky few whose lobbyists and connections may enable them to corner markets for renewable energy technologies, carbon offsets and emissions trading”(Paul Driessen) compete with alternate treatises on new rules governing emissions that would preserve economies and cities, create jobs, open up new companies and entire new alternative energy industries, enrich all families rich and poor and their communities through better health outcomes and cleaner air—without continuing to enrich the lucky few whose lobbyists and connections want to proceed with no change to business as usual.  Which side you’re on is irrelevant.

i don’t care which side you ascribe to, just consider this, it is an easy step to recognize that we are filthy, look out your door, look around your cities, towns and rural areas, we do leave a mess where ever we choose to live, our air is polluted, our cities and towns are filthy and our natural environment is suffering. 

If you spend any time out doors you will have recognized an alarming change in forests health, animal and bird life extinctions, coral bleaching and failing fish stocks.  Everyone, all over the world, that spends time outside is aware of our failure as caretakers.

i’m living in a tiny little place, but i spend a heck of a lot of time outdoors observing nature and we are definitely having a negative impact.  i see it when it rains and our run-off pollutes the ocean.  i read about it when sewer lines break all over the country and we pump raw sewage into the sea or woods.  The worst damage i’ve personally seen so far has been from the abnormally warm water that has so destroyed our coral beds and fish stocks.  Swimming through a white bone yard is the most disheartening thing an ocean lover can do.  They aren’t recovering. The forests aren't recovering, nor are the birds and animals.  So my question to you is what is wrong with wanting to clean things up? 

i'd like that simple question answered.  What exactly is wrong with wanting to clean up our environment?

If you subscribe to any of the religions that tell you to take care of the earth, and you are honest with yourself, then you have to admit we are failing our job as stewards of this earth.  i don’t care what the lobbyists and politicians say, scientific certainty is unnecessary for a clean up job, we need to clean house.  We need to clean up after ourselves; we need to care for the earth as well as we care for ourselves.  All of us can and will benefit from a healthy environment and that’s a good thing.

See ya next week.