Put your arms out in front of you as you would if you were to give your Mother a hug. You know how far apart to space your arms because you have an understanding of the size of your Mother, right?
Now, imagine that instead of taking your garbage cans to the curb each week or so, you just put cans, one after another, of garbage in your living room, or hallway, where ever you can fit them inside the house. How long until that becomes pretty unpleasant, and overcrowded?
At one time, your Mother provided all of your needs. Your home holds all of you and your stuff. Try to think of the earth as your Mother and your only home. Do you have any idea how big she is? Do you have any idea how much capacity she has?
I have been fortunate in my life to have travelled a bit around the planet. I have also had the privilege, and at times the task, of driving from one side of this continent to the other, and from the top to the bottom. I have crossed it high and low and thru the middle. I have a pretty good understanding of how big this continent is.
From this understanding it is not to difficult for me to extend that knowledge to the rest of the planet and to be able to grasp the size of the rest of the earth. It's pretty big, and, it's pretty small.
Traveling 5 days and stopping to sleep at night I can cross this country, sea to sea. During that crossing I could note, in detail all that lies between those to shores. I have done this. I could do this about 8 times and I would have gone around the world at the equator. 8 times is a pretty understandable number of times, in fact, I have done it more than 8 times.
There are those who speak and act as if the earth and it's resources are limitless. If the are being honest then I can only guess that they have no real idea of how big the earth is. They also must have no real idea of how many of us are on it, using it, and polluting it each moment. How many is 7 billion really? can you imagine that number in any real tangible way?
In traveling across the land I came to think about a few things. How much of it is actually inhabitable by people? How much of the land can actually supply us with fresh water, or a climate that can grow food? In how much of it is the weather, the environment friendly to humans?
The earth, it's resources, have a limit to them. The rate at which the earth can absorb and produce the things necessary to to support human life, clean air, healthy soil, fresh water, actually has a physical limit to it. Most of us don't seem to realize this, or at least, our actions don't reflect any knowledge of the limits of our situation.
We often turn to "technological advancement" to give us the answers and remedies to our insatiable hunger for energy and materials. Science is born of the earth and technological advancement is simply the twisting of materials and principals that already exist, in limited supply, and within certain physical laws.
You can't make a cake with just a recipe. With out the flour, sugar, and all the other ingredients all you have is the idea of a cake.
It is not human habitation that is threatening the environment we live in. It is not human waste that is corrupting our soil. It is the industrial machines and their methods that are taking at a rate that is unsupportable, unsustainable. We keep buying the products of these machines and that is their life blood. The pump will find a way to keep pumping, no matter what the cost (it will be past along) and no matter what the laws say (the laws will reflect the will of the people) as long as we keep paying at the pump.
My outlook can swing wide from day to day. Today, I see no real hope that people, each of us, will change our lives in any way that would cause industry, and the governments who support them, to slow the rate at which they plunder and pollute the very place that we depend on for our health and existence.
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