The Choice

I have often mused about the greed of Man, and of our proclivity for consumption, and of our lack of moderation, and the absence of consideration of the natural and inevitably consequences of cause and effect.
Suppose for a moment that one were standing at a mythical control panel upon which were affixed several different switches which were all set in the ON position. The labels on the brightly coloured, attractive, high impact plastic switches read as follows:

Rainforest/old growth forest logging.
Leaving this switch ON will deplete the amount of oxygen being produced to support the requirements of future generations, and is contributing to changing global weather patterns.

Overfishing and continued pollution of the world’s oceans.
This will continue to empty what once seemed an infinite source of food, and will ultimately become a great watery salt desert, contributing further to changing and catastrophic weather patterns.

Lack of control over industrial air and land pollutants.
This will further contribute to the occasional "yellow" days over rural Nova Scotia caused by smog generated by Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey industries. More and more of the very young and the elderly will die each summer as the high concentration of chemical particulate is trapped by thermal inversion. Ozone layer depletion will continue, and the rate of skin cancer and eye problems will escalate. Almost everyone is driving a Hummer.

Economic Militarism.
Nations, both large and small, continue to attack other nations with the purpose of seizing natural resources that are decreasing logarithmically. Often minefields are left behind that severely cripple the ability of the attacked nation to resume a degree of normalcy after such attacks. Canada becomes increasingly eyed as a natural resource jewel by both the United States and China.

Failure to address global societal inequalities.
This switch remains ON. Guerrilla groups (which the large militaristic nations call terrorists) continue to strike at the heart of major industrial nations. Continued support for the right wing state of Israel and the support of repressive regimes in many Arab countries by the industrialised nations makes continued jihad a life-choice for most young Arab men. African tribes continue to be routinely slaughtered by other tribes, as AIDS affects almost half of sub-Saharan Africa.

There were other switches with less earth-changing cause and effect, but all of them led, slowly but inexorably to a future in which our planet was left as an arid, depleted husk, devoid of life, and drifting alone in a cosmos where our brief human experience was judged by the natural balance of Chaos, and found severely wanting. 

I wonder, would one be brave enough to start turning these switches OFF, one at a time, and accept some measure of personal inconvenience balanced against future and sustainable prosperity? Or would one leave the switches ON, and accept the gratification of the moment, smile contentedly while listening to the music of the industrial machinery as we marched, lemming-like, towards future extinction?

For me, there is no choice.

Sic transit gloria