Climate crisis demands change
Given our zeitgeist in the 21st century, we must recycle with gargantuan diligence. But more important than recycling is that we change our economic system so that recycling is all but unnecessary.
Easy, no. Probable, no to nth power. Necessary, yes.
While we all participate in despoiling our earth, we simultaneously make futile recycling efforts. I am not deriding these efforts; it is necessary that we humans identify this horrendous problem unfolding in front of us. But given even the most modest of predictions by climatologists, the environment will be severely changed with a fatal or near-fatal effect on all life on earth unless we change our economic system.
We are not yet capable of fixing our own problems. How can we lead by berating a China, an India, a Brazil? We Americans have to do what is right.
It seems that when real problems are identified, the only real solution is “magic wand time.” What about using the Iroquois Seventh Generation principle? “What is the effect of making that gadget, seven generations down?” Such an economy would result in two things: full employment because to get the proper finished product, it would take planning and a full workforce; less income disparity, as profit becomes subservient to sustainability.
If you are reading this, the worst of times are beyond you, but we all have or know younger people, and they will produce younger people.
Unrecyclable waste, rising temperatures and sea levels, Great Garbage Patches, putrid air, ad nauseam — without meaningful change, this is the world we are leaving for posterity.
— Len Tomasello, Elmwood Park