“Earth Hour” 2019 was March 31 at 8:30 PM. Peoples all over the world turned off their power to both save energy and as a statement about climate change and the need to address the problem.
So for an hour the lights were turned off – at least some were off. Is it we ultimately want to turn off all electricity so to close power plants and take down power lines? It goes along with the shutting down of airplanes, trucks, trains, and cars. It is simply baffling to me to think that people actually think such is reasonable or even possible. And now we have AOC and a crowd seeking the presidency advocating just such things – and a significant crowd agreeing with them!
I do think we have abused the planet. It was in 1974 that a very large insurance company contacted me when I had my own construction company in North Platte seeking a bid on 46 concrete pads for pivot fulcrums and 46 pads for 3208 Cat engines. I asked where and they told me the ranch they had purchased. I knew the country as a couple of summers I had worked on a farm not too far away. On that farm, the dirty thirties had blown off the thin top soil of a field plowed in the 20’s and moved the underlying sands into large dunes. That field today is useless and will likely ever be so.
I told the insurance company I would not bid the job. They called again in November and then in December offering very large money and I told them it was morally wrong to plow that land but they did.
About five years ago there was an article in the World Herald reporting that they were abandoning the farm and returning the land to grass. I hope they can. Yes, we have not always done right.
And I do think we have done much to correct our wrongs. How we have improved in use of nature is by comparing the strip mining around Gillette, WY to that of a century ago near Virginia City, MT. The land of the latter will never be useful while the land strip mined for coal in WY is returned to look untouched when compared to the native lands nearby.
I know an engineer who worked at a coal fired power plant and I asked him a few years back about their emissions. He said they put virtually nothing into the atmosphere.
My mother-in-law developed an acute sensitivity to smells that caused her to have headaches, stomach trials, and sickness (it was likely a cancer already at work causing the symptoms). I used to tell her I was not game to living in a cave eating turnipstops and carrots. She was delightful and fun, but bordered on unreasonable in what she expected us to do and others in order to accommodate her. I sympathized with her plight but going back to caveman days was simply not an option.
I think we need to challenge ourselves about our waste and pollution issues and be willing to do with some less and pay some more. But, I don’t think we can return to the 1500’s and do the planet or mankind any good.
I think much of what is driving this is evolution, which is more and more controlling our thinking while less and less viable. It is popular primarily because it cuts out a God and it lets man be “large and in charge.” Man loves the spotlight and the power and evolution allows it. Also, evolution promotes the idea that the earth has parents – mother nature and father time. And, it is a crime to mess with said parents who have given us such a marvelous planet. “One must not anger mother nature!”
So, the cries and barking about our planet grow louder while the calls to ask God for wisdom and help grow less. I wonder who will win?
a PK Musing 
Leave a comment