Standards

Today, I was looking at a conversation on FaceBook, where a friend of mine asked for book recommendations and one of her friends recommended "Green Hell" and said it was a "breath of sanity."

Yesterday I read an article about how some people are equating "Eco-Nuts" with terrorists.

I continuously hear people saying that the laws regarding our carbon output, the restrictions that government and environmental organizations are pushing for are "taking away our rights to live as we want to" and I am baffled.

No where is anyone saying that you cant drive a car, have electricity, eat meat, turn on your lights, take out your trash, or the numerous things we do to pollute. We are asking for a new standard, we are asking for improvements to our systems that will also give people the right to continue living and enjoying their modern conveniences, just do it responsibly.

For instance... I am going to use a crude example.... in society today, we do not expect people to not have sex, anyone, who is of age, can have sex whenever, where ever they want with a consenting adult. BUT we, as a society have STANDARDS in which we find acceptable. We don't have sex in public places, we don't have sex in front of other, non participating people, we don't have sex while we are doing public activities and we don't talk about details of our sex lives in polite conversation with our parents....(maybe you do, I dunno, just bare with me) we have standards that are implemented in our society that protect the rights of others, while still allowing you to enjoy what you want to enjoy. This same argument can be made with many things: going to the bathroom, crude language, politics and religion, driving your car, using your phone, smacking your kid, all kinds of things that we have social standards of, that we do in a certain place, at a certain time, under certain conditions that make it acceptable and in doing this and following this standard, it protects those who do not wish to be exposed to certain things and still allows you the freedom to do it.

There are standards in which we expect our food to be served, our contracted service providers to behave, hand washing, dress codes, polite and courteous responses to our complaining, ect... all these are standards...

Energy efficiency, waste management, production of our food and manufacturing of our resources, our local economy, all of these things are already operating under a standard in which we have created for these industries. They could be FAR WORSE and they CAN BE FAR BETTER.

Some people say that by creating standards of efficiency for cars, we are taking away their right to drive Hummers in Urban areas. That by requiring home energy efficiency ratings, we are taking away their right to privacy. That by requiring cattle ranchers to abide by environmental standards that may lessen the production of meat, we are taking way the way we can get a "heart attack on a bun" for $1 in 2 minutes through a drive through.

I say, all these years of living by "what I want when I want" has created an awful lot of self centered, short sighted, unhealthy people who are ruled by instant gratification and are blissfully ignorant as to what happens before and after they get their fix of "gimmie it now". And these are the people afraid of the change, because they don't want to own up to the destruction they have participated in, they don't want to admit they are wrong, they don't want to work harder, change the routine of fat and easy and they don't give a crap about the damage they have done to themself or the environment around them. for all of those people, I invite you to figure out a way to bubble dome your gas guzzling, coal burning, genetically altered food eating, non tax paying culture of hate and destruction and figure out a way to dispose of your waste so it does not impose on every other living thing on this planet, taking away OUR RIGHT to live here and breathe the air and enjoy the gifts of natural food, animals, water, and the beauty of the landscape while we figure out sustainable ways to have the luxuries we choose to not live without after careful consideration of the true COSTS of our conveniences. We will live in our tightly sealed, energy efficient, net zero homes with rain water collecting systems, septic waste disposal, recycles, reuse, reduce service providers with solar panels attached to every shade providing structure we can nail one on. We will eat the freshest, best tasting fruits and vegetables, the succulent eggs from our organic chickens, we will swim in the Ocean and rivers, eating the fish, watching the birds, feeling the love of the sun on our faces while we breath the air that is not polluted by your wasteful gas guzzling, too big for you cars. We will share in the delight of moving forward with the technology that has been sitting here for years, available for use, that hasn't been used ONLY because you have been mislead by your Oil drilling, mountain top blowing up, slave driving, kings that you call politicians and corporate elite. You go right ahead and figure out a way to filter your air in your little Hell Dome that confines all your consequences so you have the right to live the way you want, and the rest of us earth loving, long haired, eco nazis will enjoy the Garden of Eden that you chose to leave, that you ignored the rules of and when your God judges you and asks why you would neglect the fruits of love he had so graciously bestowed upon the earth for your use, you can let him know it was because YOU WANTED IT THAT WAY!

I am sick of being labeled as one of these "nut jobs" because I want to enjoy the Earth and all that it has to offer in a way that does not destroy it or use it up so that our loved ones of future generations can not also enjoy it and live peacefully. The balance of our responsibility is WAY off. We have the means to live in harmony with this planet and not fight every step of nature, even the damage we have done may not be totally reversible, but it is manageable if we make some drastic changes that can and will make a difference. We are perfectly designed to live on this planet healthily and abundantly, and we have been given the brains to reason and explore and we have DONE that, now we must USE the knowledge we have found to make it right, to have our cake and eat it too, we can have the luxuries we already know, we just have to create a way to do it responsibly now that we know the consequences. Now that we know the true cost, we have been there done that, it is not working, lets do what we need to do to make it work.

There are two rules I live by: An it harm None, do what thy will. And, Do unto others as you would have done to yourself.

I take them very seriously. I do not wish to take away the rights of people, I do wish to hold them to the standard I wish to be held to and that is that if I am hurting something or someone, to be made aware of it, and given the opportunity to correct the mistake, because I assure you, my intention is not to harm.  I will not stand aside and allow myself to be walked on and miscatergorized by people who can not hold these 2 very basic values to the highest standard, while they carelessly and disresectfully destroy what gives them existance.

The time is now. I do not ask for this cange to purely benefit myself, I ask for this change to benefit the whole of this planet and all who call it home. We need to lessen our impact, our contribution to the destruciton of LIFE as we KNOW IT, not convienece as we know it, LIFE.

Who will stand with me and make a change today? Who will change one thing today to help contribute to the change we need? What will you do?