I am often struck by the lack of concern people have regarding the future of humanity and the Earth\u2019s biological systems. In general conversation, rarely do people mention such things as the plight of the insects or birds, climate change, or toxic pollution. Furthermore, it is the exception, not the rule, that one hears about people making much effort to confront these challenges. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that people just don\u2019t care about such things. Or is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Might the apparent silence and inaction on such critical\nmatters represent something other than apathy? Might we be more focused on\nday-to-day matters (such as paying our bills, taking care of an aging relative\nor performing well for a team we are a part of)? Might the constructive actions\nof many be systematically ignored by major media outlets? Or, might our\nindividual and collective fear of the future paralyze us so that we just avoid\ndiscussing or acting on these challenges? In other words, if \u201cwe are doomed,\u201d\nwhat point is there to focus on such negative things? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am no scholar of psychology and nor do I claim to have\nclairvoyance. Thus, I don\u2019t know the answers to the above questions. But that\ndoesn\u2019t stop me from thinking a bit more about them. Let\u2019s try a thought-experiment\nand see where it leads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What might you do if you knew that large meteorite was going\nto hit Earth next year (causing the 7th<\/sup> mass extinction)? Would you\nstop your daily activities and conversations? Would you start studying physics\nin hopes that you could figure out a way to deflect the meteorite away? Would\nyou sell all your personal belongings and give it to the military in hopes that\nthey could find a way to do it? (Forget the question of whom you would be\nselling it to; wouldn\u2019t all humanity be in the same situation.) Seriously, what\nwould you do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, we are in a situation not so dissimilar from the above scenario. While the \u201cmeteor\u201d (of climate change or toxic pollution) won\u2019t hit next year (not for you at least; for an increasing numbers of humans and other life forms, however, the \u201cmeteor\u201d has already hit), likely it will hit in the next several decades. Unfortunately, too many powerful influencers are deliberately ignoring or spreading misinformation about the impending \u201ccollision.\u201d So, again I ask, what are you doing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t ask this accusatorily. I ask it honestly. I,\npersonally, think about this every day. Some days I am motivated to do\nsomething about it, other days I feel helpless or preoccupied. I am sure I am\nnot alone in this. We have groups set up to deal with\/discuss alcoholism and\ncancer, but do we have groups set up to tackle humanity\u2019s greatest challenge\nyet? Doesn\u2019t it seem like we should set these groups up quickly, while we still\nhave time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me end on this note. One of the premises that I opened with stipulates that very little is being said or done on these critical matters. This is patently false, though I suspect most of us operate as if it were true (so, does that make it \u201ctrue\u201d)? Of the nearly 8 billion humans on this planet, millions of them are doing lots of amazing things to confront our environmental challenges. We just need to promote more of their work and join in to help. (I hope to write about some of them in an upcoming blog\u2026if you don\u2019t want to wait, you can begin to find such people\/efforts by searching for the Goldman Prize recipients or Champions of the Earth awardees.) Perhaps we can all commit to do something along these lines in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am often struck by the lack of concern people have regarding the future of humanity and the Earth\u2019s biological systems. In general conversation, rarely do people mention such things as the plight of the insects or birds, climate change, or toxic pollution. Furthermore, it is the exception, not the rule, that one hears about … Continue reading “Do people care?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,9,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenges","category-climate","category-solutions","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7BrNb-3W","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarutopia.org\/onehuman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}