Legacy of Shame

The current inhabitant in the White House continues to roll back more rules and regulations and protections, which were originally enacted to sustain our environment and our people. You can dirty the water. You can burn as much coal as you’d like. You can mow down trees and slaughter wild animals. You can continue to dump toxins into the environment in any way you see fit, as long as it means your corporate bottom line looks healthier. I am – almost – beyond words. But not quite.

It’s not just our county. We have no claim to fame here. Countries are laid waste, in ruins, from war. Forests, once beautiful and life sustaining, laid barren from deforestation. There are oceans and rivers where you can’t see the water through the trash, or, if you can see the water, it’s sludge-like, so filthy you wouldn’t want to touch it, no less drink it. There are countries where air pollution is so prevalent the locals don’t go outside without masks. Animals continue to face extinction alarming rates. The polar ice caps are melting, water is rising, storms are more intense and devastating and deadly. The winters are harsher and colder, the summers are unbearable and deadly. The droughts and wildfires, mudslides and floods, are a constant reminder of the legacy we leave behind.

I shouldn’t care. I have no children. No one to leave a legacy to. But I look around every day, in total amazement and awe, at the small piece of the world I live in. Butterflies, birds, squirrels, lizards, alligators, deer, armadillos, raccoons and ‘possums…just a few of the critters Joey and I see on our many walks. During our early morning walks, when it’s still dark and quiet, we hear acorns falling from trees, rolling down roofs, hitting the ground. During the day we see the trees and the flowers, the sand dunes and the surf. The creatures that live in the waters around us and the creatures that live on the land beside us. I see them all, and I am floored by the diversity of this beautiful blue sphere we live on. A treasure, and not another one like it anywhere within hundreds of thousands of light years.

By far, the most destructive, uncaring, callous, inept, creature I’ve ever met is the human one. We kill solely to kill, or to make life easier and more pleasant for ourselves, while destroying the very land that allowed us life in the first place. We are simple-minded and refuse to look forward if it means giving something up now. We are foolish and foolhardy, and we are paying the price each and every time another natural disaster, man-made disaster, or war takes lives and habitat. I am sad for those who will come behind me, and for those who will come behind them. I fear we have crossed a line of no return. This Earth, and all its inhabitants, deserved far better caretakers.

~ jwb ~