The green movement has caught our attention as we are shown clearly the errors of our destructive ways and we or at least most of us promise to "go and sin no more" or at least no more than possible.
We are all mutually hypocritical because we don't want to take the hard austerity measures need to really turn the situation around or at least do no further harm.
All of us are constantly immersed in ideas and endless rhetoric as to how to change the situation for the better "save the planet blah blah blah".
Some of the ideas make a lot of sense some really work, others not really, most are either impractical, uncomfortable, in opposition to human habit, just plain impossible, or down right nutty.
It never really matters or occurs to us to change our anti environmental habits until the success of our ever increasing numbers made it important.
I can remember my mother talking about filling up the car in the 60's when gas was so cheap per gallon that she needed to watch the attendant because if the tank was full they would pour gas out gas on the ground to get the higher dollar amount.
It sounds so foolish and careless now, but we must all remember we come from a long long history of waste and general disregard for the environment dating back to destruction of virgin forests and the use of rivers as sewers all over Europe.
No mention is made of these facts nor one of the greatest ecological disasters ever, the so called discovery of North America.
This so called discovery allowed the wanton destruction of more forest lands than had ever been destroyed before or ruined so quickly in the name of greed and profit, with no thoughts of the future.
Now all we have left are the remnants of these great eco holocausts and live averting ours eyes from the ugliness created.
The strange thing about it that the trees the land everything were and still are, considered to be an endless supply of resources and infinite garbage can.
Even now almost no one wants to consider the measures that truly are needed because they would involve not high tech solutions to our environmental problems but rather incontinent extremely low tech solutions.
The fact we must all realize it that this means very simply putting things back to the way they were before we came along and messed things up.
We can never go complete back to the way things were but the earth repeatedly proves it can heal itself if given a little help.
What we must remember is that the whole green movement is based on averting delaying or changing a short term environmental trend over the next 100 years.
The earth however is billions of years old and has healed itself many times, but it takes time and that would be disastrous for us or at best very inconvenient.
Over the next 10,000 years everything we have done to the earth including our nuclear waste will be gone or neutralized because this planet has faced a lot worse in the past due to natural causes including the greenhouse effects of volcanism, ice ages, even massive meteor strikes.
This planet we live on is as alive as we are, with a much longer life cycle and a superior system to repair, protect and even defend it self against harm and injury.
We are simply an infestation living on it that seeks favorable conditions to exist here for the short term.
What we have to do it use these defenses to our advantage.
Anyone can fly over the earth and see the cause of the problem, why our planet is heating up and why the weather is changing.
All one has to do is imagine the pristine earth before the roads, shopping centers, cities, dams, trash dumps and open pit mines.
There was one outstanding feature, how green the earth was, with trees and plants everywhere.
Massive trees were common and smaller trees populated the earth like grass on a field.
The forests covered the earth in all but the harshest cold or dry places, locking up untold billions of tons of greenhouse gases, retaining massive amounts of water and soil nutrients, which made rivers, lakes, streams, even the oceans run cleaner and clearer.
Trees cleaned the air and even made their own weather, influencing heat, humidity wind and rain.
An aerial survey in fact just a passing look, shows without a doubt how awfully bad the damage is, trees have been destroyed and are being destroyed still at an alarming rate.
The recent effects are constantly in the news, every year we read about massive floods, forest fires, dust storms, land slides and we do not make the connection to deforestation.
A recent statistic I was made aware of state 17% of all greenery including trees has been lost worldwide since 1945.
Tress are being replaced by concrete, asphalt, buildings, parking lots, golf courses, and clear cut logging sites in a way that can never be sustainable, who are we kidding? It seems only logical that if we wish to protect the environment then we must do all that can be done to return earthly conditions to their previous state.
This is an idea 1st world countries often insist on sharing with 3rd world countries while not actually saying, the 1st world is a prime example of eco devastation which is the actual truth.
Every year in so many corners of the earth we constantly read about massive forest fires, floods, drought, tornados and hurricanes.
These things must naturally occur but they are all influenced and made more severe by the decreasing population of trees.
Trees must be considered as a primary factor in climate change.
Visit any area on a hot day and where the trees are not only are we protected from the sun but the air itself is actually cooler and the ground moister.
There are many things that can not be changed but there are some that can be and trees are definitely one of them.
It is possible to replace the number of trees lost over the last 60 years, within the next 20 if we are committed to taking action.
Every parcel of unused land, parks, fields, old open mines, graveyards, old landing strips, idle federal lands, old landfills, even old parking lots, should immediately be replanted with trees.
All trees removed for construction or any other purpose should be transplanted to help create new forests and there must be stringent restrictions on cutting down and culling trees.
Trees being the renewable resource they are must be seriously farmed and protected not be used for profit and replanted marginally only for appearances of conservatism.
This is something that must be done now if we expect to get the short term environmental stability we desire, but no green plan is addressing this urgent need now.
In fact the only groups that are forcing these issues into the lime light are the ones that have been forced into the radical fringe like "ELF", because the system and the powers that be feel threatened by this simple obvious truth.