2007: A Window Into The Future

As we end another year on this beautiful planet Earth, an underlying combination of sadness, denial, and ignorance lingers in the background. Scientists predict fish populations to be depleted by 2048, and global warming will cause the sea to take more island paradises and effecting the polar bears' ability to survive man's effect on climate change on the planet.

MarineBio.org posted a thought provoking piece entitled "The Case of animal Versus Man". It's a good read.

You'd think that as advanced as we are relative to the rest of the food-web, that we would have evolved to have less reliance on destructive methods of food harvesting, and regulated envronmental outputs - seems like part of the definition of an advanced society to me...did we learn anything from Easter Island?

Over time, we have commoditized animal cruelty, not for sustinance, but for "luxury", an energy that man has projected into the universe around us. A good friend shared this PETA video with me. I warn you, if you are sensitive to animal cruelty, you might not want to watch this, but it will certainly put a new perspective on elements of society that we all support by living on such meat-intense diets. I am by no means a crazy or radical conservationist, or preaching the vegan lifestyle - I love my cheeseburgers, filet mignon and pork chops just like everybody else, but - I'm starting to wake up to the element of animal cruelty that has been created to fulfill the mass demand for meat products at "affordable prices". I just can't turn a blind eye to what we as a society have deemed "acceptable as long as you don't remind us how it's made".

Remember, it was not that long ago when society deemed slavery acceptable too. Is bringing life into this world for the sole purpose of cruelly exploiting it acceptable?

When we say "peace on earth" - are we talking not only about human conflicts with one another, but also how we interact with the rest of our planetary ecosystem?

Let's all go into 2007 with a keener eye for how our own actions impact the people, animals and planet around us. Unfortunately there is a lot of evil, greed, and ignorance in the world today, but the more of us who harness positive energy, and project that energy out into the world around us, the more we can make a difference. Levels of awareness for environmental and planetary sustainability are higher than ever before, but not enough action is taking place to ensure the seamless continuance of our world as we know it, with us being a part of it.

Here's to a happy and safe 2007 to all of us residents of planet earth..