Hey, someone had to say it. I guess this is where I earn the hypocrite title because I’m the one who always says how much he hates sensationalistic journalism and misleading headlines… I’m not really anti-planet, I’m anti-half-assed-hippie. I’m actually kind of pro full-on-hippie, they at least have a sense of commitment to a cause, even if I don’t agree with them all the time. It’s these weekend warrior types who drive big Bubba trucks to work all week and then spend all weekend bitching about how we’re destroying the planet. This BP oil spill has made a lot of the half-ass hippies float to the surface.
I’ve heard enough of this bullshit about saving the planet. Even excluding the extreme hippies who anthropomorphize the planet and claim “she can’t take much more”… the rest of them, for the most part, are not concerned with saving the planet. They are concerned with their living space. The planet is in NO danger from humans. Our ecosystem is in danger, our clean place to live may be in danger but this temperate stage of the planet’s existence is only a small part of a larger cycle and on the geologic timescale, it is incredibly short lived. This bullshit about global-warming, recycling and now the oil spill… It’s all about inconveniencing the humans and has nothing to do with actual concern for the planet.
If you lose your job, your livelihood, or you can’t enjoy the beach because of the oil spill then I understand your complaint. If you have a genuine love for the environment, the human ecosystem, the animals caught up in the oil spill then I understand your concern. But these people are starting to talk about how we are destroying the planet.
It’s another case of taking things too far. Yes, the Gulf oil spill is a damn shame, it’s going to destroy many lives and we will be dealing with this for many years to come. I hate to see it and I feel bad for the people and animals caught up in it. But in the grand scheme, the planet is barely affected.
And then we get the conspiracy nuts who want to make big business or the government responsible for intentionally destroying our lives… Or they’ll call for a ban of the company. How many of you idiots out there who are boycotting BP realize that you are only hurting the local station owners and that it’s probable that you are getting BP gasoline at the independent stations anyway because BP’s wholesale tanks had the lowest price that day? Didn’t know that your local gas station delivery tankers fill up at different wholesalers depending on the day’s price? Neither did I until I did a small amount of research. Same way I found out a little about the oil drilling process and how long it takes to cap an open well. Everyone’s yelling about how long it’s taking them to drill the relief well as if these things go in overnight! In between signing all those petitions, creating FaceBook boycott groups and forwarding all those chain e-mails did you do any actual research about your new pet peeve? Have you learned anything new? But no, I guess it’s better easier to just sit in your computer chair and scream about how we should all boycott a company that you yourself are probably still using. It makes you feel better anyway…
They blame our legislators, they blame the business but they never take on any of the blame themselves. They justify their guilt by saying things like “Hey, I have to get to work somehow” or “My consumption is nothing when compared to the big picture”. These people are wishy-washy, half-hearted morons who will jump on the next bandwagon they see their friends are on. No sense of commitment. If they really cared, do something about it. Bike to work, do without things, change your job if it requires you to go carbon-positive… make real change! Otherwise, shut the fuck up!
You know why I don’t go out of my way to bike to the store or move closer to work so I save gasoline on a 75 mile daily commute? Because I don’t fucking care about saving the planet. Not in the way these pseudo-hippies are screaming about. I probably care more about the planet than they do, it’s the humans that I’m not so sure are worth saving. So purely out of self-interest, I’m hoping that real change does come but I’m not making loud, senseless gestures that do nothing but announce to all who will listen that I am a sensitive caring soul who is somehow better than the guy next to me who isn’t holding up a picket sign. Hummers and SUV’s everywhere I look and I’m expected to believe that we’re really trying?
One day it will come to a head and we will be forced to deal with it. I expect that the transition will be traumatic. You think 4$ gasoline was expensive? You’ll yearn for those days when we really near the end. But that’s the only way to get people excited about things, hit them in the wallet. Humans have devolved to the point that unless it costs them money, it doesn’t concern them.
Hopefully we’ll die off and make room for another species to have a chance at the big game. I’m all for human extinction. I’m not planning it, I’m not even rooting for it. I just know that it’s coming and I’ve accepted it. I also think it deserves a bonus giggle if we caused it ourselves. But we’ll go soon enough and your “Mother Earth” will still deal with things like this latest oil spill. (Come to think of it, what are the possibilities of an earthquake or volcano shifting the crust enough to rip open an oil deposit?)
George Carlin summed it up pretty well when he said, “The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles… hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages… And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference?”
So “bad” shit will still happen to the planet, there just won’t be any humans here to assign blame and feel superior.
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