The haze thickens as the murky clouds over our majestic plains contain more than smoke from blasting firearms: Deadly carbon emissions progressively poison Mother Earth, slowly suffocating life.
Earth has experienced many natural climate changes over the eons. This century, it’s clearly humans who have caused the damage to Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientists warn global temperatures are warmer than any time in at least 4,000 years. Arctic regions are rapidly warming.
Consider that 2-3 degrees of sustained warming affects this planet in the same way a lingering 102 degree temperature ravages an ailing child. A persistent 4-5 degree increase — think heat stroke — can kill or cause brain and internal organ damage.
Our planet has a prolonged and rising fever.
Earth’s most profitable companies — oil, gas and coal producers — effectively pollute with misinformation to make science seem uncertain.
Addressing this absolute problem shouldn’t be liberal versus conservative. But while false propaganda is well-financed, foolishly believed and rampant, Earth suffers.
Natural gas fracking began in the 1990s, utilizing Halliburton technology, when Dick Cheney was CEO prior to his vice president position under George W. Bush. Cheney feathered his
conflict-of-interest Halliburton nest with his 2005 energy bill, which exempts oil and gas companies from environmental regulations. The “Halliburton loophole” allows oil and gas drilling to pump toxic chemicals into and near drinking water sites.
“For everything taken from the Earth, there is a byproduct or consequence,” according to Mother Nature Network. “Some people reap from the Earth, but people and wildlife are sickened, displaced and harmed by the resulting pollution.”
Oil spills top the worst list. Oil has seeped into nearly all ecosystems and when ingested by animals, pollutants enter the food chain. Highly toxic tar sands oil spills will devastate life.
Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, weapons reprocessing, medical and industrial manufacturing byproducts, coal and mineral mining, etc., carry the potential for water and air contamination.
Urban air pollution kills two million people annually. Motor vehicle exhaust is linked to asthma and pneumonia-related deaths.
Greenhouse gases — water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone — accumulate in the atmosphere, causing warming and climate change. Profound effects of rapid climate change include rising sea levels and snowpack melt, threatening Earth’s fresh water supplies.
Mercury from coal-powered plant emissions, byproducts of gold mining, cement and iron and steel production, plus waste disposal, accumulates in soil, water, atmosphere and particularly in seafood, the most significant source of mercury contamination in humans.
Pharmaceutical waste is a major worldwide concern. Millions of doses of drugs are prescribed to people annually. Eighty-five percent of all antibiotics permeates livestock feed, the chemicals eventually dosing water supplies and our food. The natural risk to humans is superseded by speeding the evolution of superbugs immune to antibiotics.
Plastics are toxic. Vinyl chloride (PVC) is a known carcinogen and bisphenol A (BPA) can disrupt endocrine function, cause insulin resistance and is linked to heart disease. Plastics biodegrade slowly, some lasting for millennia, with accumulation creating gigantic plastic islands — most famous is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Pesticides, chemicals and untreated manure are the most dangerous forms of toxic pollution spreading to water supplies. Excessive runoff eventually starves waterways of oxygen, creating dead zones. The EPA advises half of all surface water pollution in America is attributable to agricultural sources.
Littering, hazardous wastes and overexploitation all endanger Mother Earth. There has been such a decline in ocean fish population that one-third of the world’s commercial fisheries have collapsed. Our oceans are so over-harvested fish and sea life can no longer replenish naturally, further exacerbated by pollution-poisoned coral reefs no longer able to nurture life.
Worldwide polling reveals a majority believe climate change is a serious but distant problem only applicable in faraway arctic, antarctic and other remote, unpopulated areas of Earth.
For people not profiting from the worst polluting industries: Beware; it isn’t just polar bears and penguins endangered. Weather event destruction in 2012 America — tornadoes, drought, hurricane, floods — cost $11 billion and rising. Like the seas.
Without pollution improvements, all echelons of life will pay the ultimate price.
Sherry McKnight is a Sun City resident and can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.