The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Earth Day 2022

THE GOOD

Across the American landscape there is something fundamentally wrong with our understanding of the Natural World. We think we can abuse it with GMO's, 84,000 chemicals and endless carbon exhaust. We think we can continue expanding and exploding our numbers as well as our profligate waste of water, energy and resources. The sad reality grows daily: we're coming to the end of the line. It could be five, ten or twenty years from now, but the end of the line is coming.

Wisconsin U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, Father of Earth Day 1970, said,

As a college senior at Michigan State University, I wrote essays in the Michigan State News, called my senators, urged other students to participate and engaged faculty to speak about human overpopulation, species extinction rates, degradation of our oceans and a host of consequences being played out across the globe.

During that time, my youthful enthusiasm drove me to speak up, write up and create organizations to address and solve humanity's degradation of this planet at the time. I figured everyone cared about the well-being of the planet because the Earth's health meant humans' health.

As a certified math-science teacher, I thought my work in the classroom would really make a difference here in the USA. We could stop DDT, Monsanto's Agent Orange, Dow Chemical's poisoning of the Great Lakes and 84,000 chemicals from being injected, sprayed and dumped into the natural world 24/7. I felt we could end poverty, homelessness, stop the Vietnam War, stop racism, domestic abuse and more.

On Earth Day 1970, human overpopulation stood as the preeminent crisis facing the planet. We humans in 1970 featured 3.5 billion of ourselves. By engaging birth control and 2.0 children per family, we could balance out the USA to a stable population of 250 million by 1990. In fact, by 1970, American women averaged 2.03 children across this country.

Clearly, we walked the correct path to coming into balance with Mother Nature.

At the same time, I felt we could educate the CEO's of Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Chevron and Bayer to stop killing the natural world with their chemicals. Boy oh boy, was I in for a rude awakening! They created thousands more chemicals to unleash on the environment!

THE BAD

When your youthful enthusiasm meets brutal reality, you get your rear-end handed to you on a platter. The Vietnam War continued for another five years with Agent Orange and thousands of other chemicals poisoning the air, water and land 24/7. What did I discover? CEO's of all those companies could care less about the environment. They only cared about MONEY! Their Mercedes! Their Lear Jets! Their million dollar mansions!

Then came the plastics as predicted in the movie, "The Graduate."

While American women averaged 2.03 children, Congress opened the flood gates via immigration to over 1 million immigrants annually. They came from overloaded countries that continued adding 83,000,000 new babies, net gain, annually. Thus, America didn't level off to a sustainable population, but exploded from 194 million in 1965 to 300 million by 2006, and presently at 335 million in 2022. And, headed for 440 million by 2050.

If you think our air polluted, traffic gridlocked, and crowded cities are bad now, you ain't seen nothin' yet! We're about to dump another 100,000,000 people, net gain, into the USA within 28 years.

What's astounding to me stems from the fact that our president and Congress continue exploding our population to unimaginable, unsustainable numbers. Can California sustain another 20 million immigrants? Can New York City handle another 10 million residents? What happens when Florida doubles from 20 million to 40 million as projected by the Population Reference Bureau?

Here in Colorado where I live, it's a driving nightmare to travel to a ski resort or camping in the summer. And, we're about to add 3,000,000 people! We don't have the water, but don't let that stop the "pro-growth" development firms from building Denver into another 2,000,000 more people!

When you realize that Catastrophic Climate Destabilization will devastate entire species that cannot adapt fast enough, and droughts that linger for years, you realize that we're in for one nasty, ugly ride.

THE UGLY

This ugly portion might make you sick to read because it's painful to deal with the reality of our situation. Which will translate to your children!

On Earth Day 1970, we number 3.5 billion humans. In that span of 52 years, we didn't balance human population. While first world countries enjoyed 2.0 children per woman or less, third world countries screamed ahead by adding 4.4 BILLION more humans. We're currently at 7.9 billion and headed for 10 billion.

The numbers prove SO insane that it's hard to grasp mentally or emotionally. What the hell and how in the hell will the United States sustain another 100 million more people within 28 years? You got any answers?

After 1965, when the plastics started pouring into the oceans (our final toilet) along with the 84,000 chemicals, notice that our cancer rates exploded. Notice that humans dumped 5.25 TRILLION pieces of plastics into the oceans in the last 57 years! We add 8,000,000 more pieces of plastic 24/7. That Great Pacific Garbage Patch with 100 million tons of plastic floating out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean should make you sick enough to stop it. Nope! We humans keep adding to it and the extinction rates of marine life. My God, we must be the most arrogant, clever and dumbest species on the planet.

Then, notice that we kill off 100,000,000 sharks annually for shark fin soup. Those death rates have been going on for over 30 years. We're now causing the extinction of 100 animals 24/7 across the globe. We're burning the rain forests to the ground. I could give you another dozen nasty, God-awful nightmare we're committing future generations to try and survive.

That's the good, bad and ugly of Earth Day 2022. May God have mercy on the human race when the "you know what" hits the fan.

We have failed Senator Gaylord Nelson's vision:

U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, Father of Earth Day 1970, said,