It’s Time To Stop Killing Our Planet Before We Have Nothing Left

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Today I went to a store to buy two things, a planner and cute wine bottle wrap for a Christmas present. That was it, just two things and I was handed a plastic bag. A whole plastic bag for two little items I could have easily carried to my car and to be honest it made me angry.

I love the environment; I like to think of myself as someone who tries to make environmentally friendly choices without being an extremist. If there is a recycling bin I will always recycle. I never liter. I bring my own reusable shopping bags every time I plan on going to the store. I refill the same water bottle over and over. I pick up trash I see at the ocean and throw it in the bin that takes two seconds to walk to. I bring my own trash bags when I tailgate. I do what I can without having a stick up my ass about it.

But getting handed a plastic bag really rubbed me the wrong way and my friend didn’t understand because to her it was normal, and to me it also used to be normal – until it wasn’t.

I’ve spent the last eight months living in places where if you didn’t bring your own bag you had to pay for one and most of the time they were recycled brown paper bags. Sure the 15 cents I’d pay didn’t add up too much for only eight months, but it still added up. It helped me remember to bring my own bags and it helped me get really good at carrying things in my arms without dropping them. But mostly, it helped me become even more environmentally aware. It helped me realize how wasteful we are as humans and how much harm we are doing to the environment.

Humans are destroying the environment, every single day. We are ruining it with every balloon we let vanish into the air, we are ruining it with every cigarette butt we throw out the window, every napkin we drop as we’re stuffing our face with food on our morning commute. We are ruining it with every plastic bag we receive and let blow away in the wind, we are ruining it every time we throw a plastic bottle into the garbage can. We are constantly and consistently ruining it to the point where we are close to killing two-thirds of wildlife off in just 50 years.

When you let your plastic bag blow away in the wind I’m guessing you don’t think of the sea turtle who has it stuck in his nose?

Distributing, huh?

I’m assuming you’re not thinking about how animals can choke on balloons when you let them go in the sky. I’m assuming you’re not thinking about how glass and cans can cut and slice animals who are trying to get food from inside them. I’m assuming you’re not thinking about ropes that can tangle animals up or rubber bands that can wrap around small animals bodies.

It’s all relevant and that is all part of human waste.

We kill animals that aren’t overpopulated for fun, for trophy’s, for the hell of doing it because why not!? We pay to get our photo taken with drugged up lions and tigers, and we believe the companies when claim the animals are well taken care of. News flash: if you’re sitting next to lion and it’s not trying to kill you something isn’t right! We fuck with nature so hard and it’s destroying the world.

 

That is clearly not okay, but people still support inhumane things like this everyday and it’s disgusting.

We’re cutting down habitats to make room for new housing developments for money hungry companies who don’t care about the animals natural habitats they are destroying. We are letting exotic animals (that we shouldn’t even have in our homes in the first place) into the wild and they are killing off the natural species in their own habitats. We are killing helpless animals because we are an awful, awful species who think we are superior to all because we have a voice, yet we don’t use our voice for good. We use our voice to kill, to degrade, to overpower, to be disgustingly selfish and arrogant.

We just take and take and take. We don’t think of the impact it’s going to leave behind but we don’t care either because we’re going to be “long gone” by that point, so it won’t directly affect us.

At some point the earth is going to surrender and give up because it has nothing left to give. Hopefully at that point everyone is going to wish they put more money into the environment and less money into their own pockets, but we most likely won’t be around when that happens, so we shrug our shoulders and don’t think twice because we are driven by profits and money.

Try holding your breath while counting all your money, you can’t. You need the environment to live and breathe, that’s what’s important and that’s what matters because you can’t take your money with you when you go.

And when all the trees are cut down and we don’t have an oxygen, when all the water is polluted and we have nothing to drink, when all the animals are dead and we have nothing to eat, only then will the human race realize you can’t eat money. Only then will the human race realize how much more we could have done to help the earth because no amount of money will bring back the wildlife and clean the air, water or environment from its pollution.

The world we live in is degrading minute by minute and we’re too wrapped up in our own lives to do anything about it. And the most ironic part about it all is that we are the ones who are destroying it. We are the ones who are killing the earth, and the best part is that the earth certainly doesn’t need us, but we need the earth.

And just because you might not see the pollution first handedly, doesn’t mean it’s not there because it most certainly is.

We are a selfish race and it’s only destroying this beautiful planet we live on. Soon enough the earth is going to give up because you can only take so much before anyone – or anything – collapses. Then we will wish we did more.