Are We Really Still Destroying Ourselves?

Bye, Bye Earth.

Image credit: Canva

Last week, a thick smog shrouded the place I reside — the Washington, D.C. area. It was ten times worse in New York City. Smoke from wildfires in Canada that I wasn’t even aware of had blown its way down to the major metropolitan areas of the Northeastern United States. I went out in it for sushi with a friend because we’d planned it several days ahead of time. We found no reason to cancel our plans.

I walked through the yellow air among other young people who were also out and about, attending happy hours in their corporate work clothes. The air was surprisingly cold and the sun had disappeared from view. I kept thinking that this was how the dinosaurs must have died millions of years ago. Then, I went into the windowless sushi restaurant and forgot what the world looked like outside for a while.

I can’t help but wonder — will there be a day when we simply can’t do this anymore? Will I one day make plans with a friend that we can’t keep because we will finally be going extinct that day?

I mean, how dumb is humanity? Well, you’re getting a chance right now to find out. We continue to attend happy hours and sip on our martinis as we watch the world literally burn.

Humans are wasteful assholes. We are destroying nature so we can build luxury apartments and wear designer flip-flops. And the less privileged of us have little choice but to participate in the mass destruction because we are brainwashed by the people in charge to think that this is the right way to live — by completely disconnecting from the natural order of things. The rich and the poor will all go extinct together, and we all have an equal share of responsibility, but the fewer financial resources one has, the less freedom one has to choose sustainable living.

The people in charge are the dumbest of us all because they actually have the power to save the planet and its living creatures, but they choose not to. They don’t care about trees, insects, sea creatures, or land animals. But most importantly, they don’t care about other humans, and they don’t seem to even care about themselves. Their descendants will suffer the same as a polar bear when the climate changes so drastically and suddenly that food can’t grow anymore.