Earth Day

Let’s all put our hands together for another successful Earth Day.  I can’t imagine a year without the pomp and ceremony associated with this grand day.  Earth Day, unlike a birthday is the celebration of the earth….  OK, ok, is it over yet, can we get back to our lives and our problems and our everyday days and put this grandeur behind us and get back to work?

Oh wait; nobody actually gets the day off, with exception of course of the environmental cadre of waked out, politicized, hippiesh fiends that want to role back all progress, forego any consumption of animal matter, destroy all the guns of the world and live in peace and harmony, kumbaya (by the way kumbaya is slang for “come by here…” just in case you were wondering).

Why don’t we have rock days or moon days or tree day’s…ooh we do have tree days their called arbor day and their designed to replenish the trees that have been slaughtered by the billions over the years in hopes of putting back what the “earth” needs in order to create or sustain the balance of nature.   

There was a weird movie years ago called Koyaanisqatsy, or life out of balance, a movie with no words and only rapid images that depicted the harsh conditions of the earth made primarily by man.  Although it was an interesting movie visually the theme it portrayed was a lie in my opinion.  You can obviously disagree but when you consider the facts of what this Earth is and what we as “evil” men have created, perhaps the balance we are sustaining is more a miracle than a hindrance to those who would have us revert to the dark ages of time.

Earth Day is nothing more than a propagandist attempt to subvert creativity and innovation and dump in its place the guilt of success and advancement.  Let’s look at what we are today as apposed to what we used to be:

We are a people of nearly 8 billion that live mostly in peace and harmony with those around us.  Sure we have wars, devastating and destructive.  We have disease and deprivation and we also have death and suffering…so what’s new?  We have always had these things, we have always had war but the ratio of war to the number of people affected is significantly lower than it’s ever been.  The numbers of people starving today as a ratio of those that used to starve is much lower than in the past and continues to improve, slowly at times but it still improves as the technology advances and provides alternatives to the desperation of prior years.

If we cannot look toward the future without realizing our strengths then perhaps we should revert to the disease ridden, Black Death bitten past and let only the very, very few control our lives.  There are more freedoms today than at anytime in any point in history.

We may complain about racism or bigotry, hate and anger but look at the facts of where we live and how we live as opposed to the past.  The past was a very dangerous place with infant mortality at nearly 30-40% on a good day and that was only for those younger than a year.  Today only about 1/10 fall prey to early complication of life. 

Regardless of what others (the wacko environmentalist) say the truth is obvious, we’re doing a pretty good job.  We have made tremendous strides toward feeding the world.  Of course we could do better and do more, that will always be the case but in celebrating Earth day we continue to berate those advances, those technologies and our humanity, selling the negative that our rain forests are being depleted, the climate is changing and the delta smelt is on the verge of extinction.   (The last one may be truer than the other two) but even if all were true what would the environmentalist truly have us do?  Stop bathing so we can save the Delta Smelt?  Stop watering our fruit trees or filling our pools, letting them go green so we can all eat algae?

California has knows about this specific issue for over thirty years and has done nothing to mitigate the needs of the growing population.  That incompetence is pervasive in all facets of government in all countries and the populations are made to pay the price for their ineffectiveness. 

Earth Day should be a day of celebration where man and nature have prevailed and excelled over the challenges that face us all.  There is enough blame already, I propose that next year Earth Day be a day of festivity and commemoration for the grand and amazing feats of science and human endeavor that have brought us all to a life of privilege and opportunity, especially in relation to our past and what we would have had had we listened to the constant blathering of the environmental naysayers.   Go Earth, Yea to innovation and all Men.

The Natural God

British Columbia has been advertising for tourist through the emotions of Nature.  There is a rhythm and serenity to that beauty they claim and we should all be better off if we spend lots of money by partaking of their particular kind of nature.

It’s not that I don’t agree, in fact I do agree but in a slightly different way, especially when they talk of that rhythm that seems to permeate all living things; I do believe there is a commonality in nature that affects us all and motivates us toward whatever Nature is trying to tell us.  The problem, and there is always a problem, is that the term Nature is simply a more agreeable way to acknowledge God, without giving praise to the being of all creation. 

The issue is in the advertisement and the proclamation of nature without regard to the creative sense and design and the overall rhythm and beauty that was purposely implanted for our benefit.  Nature is not a being, it is not alive, nor does it have purpose or rhythm or beauty.  Nature is the combination of all things within the confines of our environment.  Nature does not include space or the other planets, they may have a nature but their nature will not be natural to us. 

Nature is the plants, the animals, the mountains, the valleys and seas; it includes the beauty and ugliness of all that our world has to offer.  Nature is the oceans and breezes, the hurricanes and the tornadoes, the earthquakes and volcanoes and the ebb and flow of the tides.  Nature has been ebbing and flowing from before man and the clockwork of its machinations will continue on schedule with or without mans interference.

The idea that nature has a rhythm can be plainly seen in the movement of the trees when a breeze rushes by.  One can see the tempo as a butterfly flits and flies up and down or the fish in great schools undulate and vacillate in one massive form.  The slow massive growth and destruction of mountains and the rapid decline of melting ice can all be witnessed and recorded as act of regularity and reliability honed from the hand of time itself, bringing to pass the understanding of what nature really is, A Testament of God and his artistry.

Some say they can see nature sigh and suffer from the incursions of mans neglect.  I agree.  We have not been the best stewards of these great and generous gifts.  We constantly pollute and destroy; we indiscriminately kill and maim not only the animals but ourselves and the land and we do so callously and cruelly without regard to the future or present needs of those who possess and depend on what has been given.

Regardless of your understanding or belief, Nature or God the same rules apply.  Our earth lives and breaths, speaks and listens and reacts to what is being done.   Who will answer the horrors committed, God or Nature? Who will unleash the volcanic devastation, or who will respond with raising seas?  Which one will shake the foundation of all there is by moving those great tectonic plates or subdue all living under a cloud of hate and destruction with the tiniest of substances atomizing the atmosphere so that only nature is alive, God or Nature? They’re one in the same, Except with God there is forgiveness for what we've done and hope for the future.  Nature like us obeys and does as it is commanded.  Maybe that is the rhythm we should be searching for, the ebb and flow of understanding and obedience to those laws so plainly visible that even nature obeys, and knowledge of who we are as apposed to what we think we are.     

 God and Nature may look the same but in the end it is the Natural man that we must overcome in order for us to become more godlike.  So when I see a flower amidst the concrete and asphalt, struggling for life but all the while showing its beauty I know there is a god.  When I see the wars ravaging the planet over inconsequential arguments and the life within continues to flourish, shop keepers continue to sell and produce, men and women still fall in love and children are born, I know there is a god watching over us all. His pattern for us is helping us to learn to overcome, helping us learn to love and improve, knowing that as children we make mistakes, sometimes grave and serious mistakes but also providing us the love to know that we are important, we are loved and there is more to life than Nature.  Be god like and watch others grow.