I want you to stop for a moment and think how you feel, not from an emotional perspective, but physically. As most of you are, I assume, probably in good health, there is strength within, alertness, cognition and other qualities you would expect from someone or something that is alive and well. Now imagine a sickness penetrating deep inside you. Havoc and pain run wild within every crevice of your once healthy body and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Helpless and vulnerable, you wish you could cry out for help, but your voiceless and your dark inner fears of dying imprison and overwhelm you. One might consider everything I just described as over dramatic after confessing this is how I imagine the earth feels today and the sickness is us.
I don’t for a moment absolve myself as part of the problem. For most of my life, I am as guilty as any in my over abundant consumption with little regard on the consequences of my actions. Even as I write this now, I’m still not as discerning, as I should be, but the recognition of that failing behavior has catapulted me forward in changing even if it’s just a little each day.
It’s difficult to admit you’re essentially a cancer until you view its’ definition – a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body. The influence, manipulation or rather uncontrollable grip we have on this living, breathing earth is abnormal. Instead of existing as one with it, we have stripped it of most it has to offer and discard haphazardly all of the filthy waste that’s left behind.
This behavior of ours is something that we not only should change, but rather something we need to change. Let me be clear that this plea I’m making is neither to debate climate change nor the various things that can be done from a political standpoint. Answers and execution of solutions are rarely if ever from the hands of politicians. Typically, when policy makers are involved, there’s a financial gain for them or their contributors disguised as an attempt that they are doing something good and in the best interest of all of us. Research the American Wind Energy Association members and their taxpayer subsidies as an example. I’m also not naive to think that restricting our growth and development for the perceived and potentially arguable interest of the planet doesn’t at the same time hinder economic growth and financial stability.
The changes I wish to see are for us to simply be smarter about how we live and how we continue to develop. It’s what we do as individuals in whatever positions we hold in society that can make a drastic impact on a large scale. We shouldn’t rely on a change to happen because of a regulation or policy is instituted. My whole point is for each of us to embrace the meaning and definition of conservation.
The action of conserving something, in particular – preservation, protection or restoration of the natural environment, natural ecosystems, vegetation and wildlife. In my opinion, it’s a point that I believe everyone can agree on since it is a matter of simple common sense that our resources that this earth provides are not infinite and without them we no longer exist. Isn’t it just an intelligent logical approach to conserve what we have and use it sensibly? There’s so much room for opportunity in almost everything we do whether it be from small things like the quantity of toys a child has that are typically discarded, as they grow older or are cheap inexpensive throwaways from a happy meal. Roughly ninety percent of all toys are made of plastic and the majority of that from plastics that are not recyclable. Or even on a bigger scale, you can turn to our unnecessary demand of large portioned meals and inevitable waste that produces a consistent strain on the farmer and rancher to deliver a more robust product ultimately potentially taking measures that could prove detrimental to our health in order to meet that demand.
There are a variety of topics that I will address in future postings in greater detail, but today I want to provide perspective on what is most sacred to me. Growing up in a small town, I was fortunate to be raised on five acres of land resting in the shadows of a mature forest. The area around our home was dense enough that when most kids were out until past eight o’clock because they were told to be back in the house before dark on a summer day, we would be back by six. I loved being surrounded and protected by the tall wooden giants that I knew from birth, so it causes me great pain to see them be under constant attack and completely disregarded of their importance.
Protecting forests is one of the oldest conservation movements we have and yet so many within our society continue to ignore it. Anybody with a basic elementary education understands that trees help produce oxygen. Yes, oxygen, the life-supporting component of the air we breathe and need to exist. As an added bonus, in order to produce oxygen, it absorbs carbon dioxide, which of course is harmful to the environment when it accounts for too much of our atmospheric gas.
Today, there are roughly three trillion trees. That sounds like a whole lot, but let me provide you with some perspective. There are multiple ways that science can break down how much oxygen a tree can produce and every tree varies, but here are some ballpark statistics to consider. Keep in mind that there are varying studies pertaining to this and there are an even greater variety of the results from those studies. I spent hours researching multiple organizations and came up with the rough estimate that it takes forty trees to provide enough oxygen for one person in a year. As of 2016, there were reportedly 7.4 billion people in the world. With our roughly three trillion trees that means as of today there are basically four hundred and three trees for each of us. That’s great news. Three hundred and sixty three to spare, but of course population is rising at an astounding rate and so is our deforestation.
At one point, nearly forty eight percent of our land was covered with trees. Today, it is roughly thirty one percent. Most of that deforestation is happening in Brazil to clear land for agriculture and livestock. Remember me stating earlier our over consumption of food can improve? I’ll get back to that at another time. For now, I want to focus on a very simple solution that can aid in slowing this trend.
Despite the clear problem that has been discussed for years, unfortunately our society still to a large degree ignores their responsibility. In my own experience, I’ve had to literally dive into the garbage to remove sheets upon sheets of paper and transfer them to the recycling bin that sat right next to it. My son’s elementary school, which I can only imagine how much usage of paper products are consumed within a school year, has no recycling program. How does a well-funded school district residing in a community with single stream recycling not recycle? How many hotels and restaurants have you been to without a hint or trace of a recycling program and just imagine the quantity of paper goods consumed at such establishments? There’s no reason why this should be happening. There’s no reason why you can’t use both sides of a piece of paper or why businesses can’t take better advantage of technology to eliminate paper based processes.
With every sheet carelessly tossed away, our demand for the product leads to downing another tree and yet there seems to be no outrage or defense in stopping this atrocity. It’s as if “save the trees” is just an old fad and so it’s really not a problem anymore. For those that are out there and think this way, you couldn’t be more wrong. Paper is one of the easiest and most accessible resources to recycle, so there is absolutely no reason why we cannot take this step forward in conservation. If we don’t, just imagine our world without trees. The image of that should be horrifying because to imagine a world without trees is to imagine a world without us.