An Inconvenient Truth
It was shaking.
It's one of the few times in my life I have ever felt that scared. It made me want to do something about it, really try. And to spread the word, to try to get other people, as many as I can, involved in changing the direction we're headed. You have to see it. Make everyone you know see it.
It-- I can't describe it. I know how dramatic and stupid this sounds, but really, it's the end of the world. And I've never been more devastated by human stupidity, carelessness, and the fact that Gore didn't win that election.
I've heard it dismissed as "just a movie." But it's not. It's what's going on in the world. And writing it off as "just a movie" is exactly what's screwing us over. This is our planet, and it's all we have. We have to take care of it. We have to take action. We can do something about it, but we have to want to. I don't understand why anyone with any morals, or at least a sense of self-preservation, wouldn't care about this.
Please, just see the movie. It's not that long-- less than 2 hours. There are so many easy things to do to make a difference, and it's so important.
My great fear about space exploration is that we won’t be more careful this time; we’ll just destroy another planet. I think that right now the major priority should be finding a way to preserve-and ideally, to restore-our own world, before we move on to others. Treating Earth as something disposable and replaceable, as though if we screw up too seriously here we can always pack up and move to the next rock over, frightens me profoundly. I don’t think of the planet as merely somewhere to live, or as a platform on which we stage our performances, or as a feed and supply store. It’s more than just the natural resources it has to offer; to me, it’s who has breathed this air, whose ashes enrich this soil, what footprints have disturbed the dust, the monuments and relics that remind us of all that preceded us. We cannot transfer the essential (in the most literal sense of the word) remnants of the men and women of the past to wherever we seek sanctuary from our own folly. By this I do not only mean great men and women-though God knows I couldn’t bear to leave behind the planet where Shakespeare and Alexander the Great and Byron and Elizabeth I and Cleopatra took their first and last breaths-but also every other invisible, forgotten individual who has called this forlorn scrap of dirt home.
How can we take this so casually? How can anyone postpone saving the only thing we have? This is our future, and that of everyone we have ever cared about. All our history, from our earliest ancestors to the children we haven't seen yet, has lived on this little speck. And I can't bear to surrender that. I'm only seventeen, and I'm not a scientist or a politician or anyone like that. But I want to make a difference, because I've been raised to believe I can do that. This is my life. I won't let go of it so easily.
I've has StopGlobalWarming.org send emails to most of you, but just in case you didn't get them, here are the websites I recommend looking at. It'll only take a minute, and do you have anything more important to do today than learn how to rescue all we've got? I didn't think so.
www.stopglobalwarming.org
www.climatecrisis.net
www.participate.net
It's one of the few times in my life I have ever felt that scared. It made me want to do something about it, really try. And to spread the word, to try to get other people, as many as I can, involved in changing the direction we're headed. You have to see it. Make everyone you know see it.
It-- I can't describe it. I know how dramatic and stupid this sounds, but really, it's the end of the world. And I've never been more devastated by human stupidity, carelessness, and the fact that Gore didn't win that election.
I've heard it dismissed as "just a movie." But it's not. It's what's going on in the world. And writing it off as "just a movie" is exactly what's screwing us over. This is our planet, and it's all we have. We have to take care of it. We have to take action. We can do something about it, but we have to want to. I don't understand why anyone with any morals, or at least a sense of self-preservation, wouldn't care about this.
Please, just see the movie. It's not that long-- less than 2 hours. There are so many easy things to do to make a difference, and it's so important.
My great fear about space exploration is that we won’t be more careful this time; we’ll just destroy another planet. I think that right now the major priority should be finding a way to preserve-and ideally, to restore-our own world, before we move on to others. Treating Earth as something disposable and replaceable, as though if we screw up too seriously here we can always pack up and move to the next rock over, frightens me profoundly. I don’t think of the planet as merely somewhere to live, or as a platform on which we stage our performances, or as a feed and supply store. It’s more than just the natural resources it has to offer; to me, it’s who has breathed this air, whose ashes enrich this soil, what footprints have disturbed the dust, the monuments and relics that remind us of all that preceded us. We cannot transfer the essential (in the most literal sense of the word) remnants of the men and women of the past to wherever we seek sanctuary from our own folly. By this I do not only mean great men and women-though God knows I couldn’t bear to leave behind the planet where Shakespeare and Alexander the Great and Byron and Elizabeth I and Cleopatra took their first and last breaths-but also every other invisible, forgotten individual who has called this forlorn scrap of dirt home.
How can we take this so casually? How can anyone postpone saving the only thing we have? This is our future, and that of everyone we have ever cared about. All our history, from our earliest ancestors to the children we haven't seen yet, has lived on this little speck. And I can't bear to surrender that. I'm only seventeen, and I'm not a scientist or a politician or anyone like that. But I want to make a difference, because I've been raised to believe I can do that. This is my life. I won't let go of it so easily.
I've has StopGlobalWarming.org send emails to most of you, but just in case you didn't get them, here are the websites I recommend looking at. It'll only take a minute, and do you have anything more important to do today than learn how to rescue all we've got? I didn't think so.
www.stopglobalwarming.org
www.climatecrisis.net
www.participate.net