The Lemmings of Profit

There has always been an element of the population which possesses an insatiable monetary greed. In the past the consequences have been the inevitable social trauma of a widening gulf between the "haves and the have-nots". Yet now there is the added dimension of a lasting environmental impact due to single-minded profiteering. It seems that no matter how much evidence scientists bring to the table about the destructive effects of using fossil fuels, it's like trying to tell a circle of gambling addicts to put away their cards or they are going to end up bankrupting their families. They just can't stop. But in this case what we are bankrupting is the ecological fund for life itself to exist on this planet. The super-rich are behaving like that fascinatingly self-destructive rodent, the lemming. They are racing to the precipice to dive into the sea of chaos and death. That might be all right for the rest of us if they were the only victims of their obsessive-compulsive disorder with regard to piling up wealth. Yet we are harnessed to these stock-market lemmings, whether we like it or not. We can recycle, we can support local and small businesses, we can support organic small farming, we can use green transportation and green housing, we can plant trees, but if the masters of our economy do not cease this lust to continue to keep the energy that generally fuels our civilization (i.e., petroleum, shale-gas deposits, coal) as a commodity of upwardly spiraling profit margins, we will destroy our planet. As it is, scientists say we have set into motion forces that will take hundreds of years to reverse, in terms of the trends that are already causing deterioration of climates amenable to flourishing life -- even if we finally get off our backsides and start using alternative energies now in a massive way. So now we are fracking the backyards and fields of our own living space in the United States, poisoning our well-heads and aquifers, and resorting yet again to a fossil fuel to unleash upon our already besieged atmosphere. All I can say is, there is no life on Venus, and greenhouse atmospheres a thousand times less harsh than those of our sister planet would still make for a very unhappy existence. The lemmings are marching steadily into that invisible deadly smog, and we are strapped to them. The innocent will be dragged over the precipice with the money-mad fools. Let us not make any claim that human beings are superior to rodents.