"i will never understand people. they're the worst"

one of many favorite quotes from one of my favorite television shows: seinfeld. seemed suitable for my first blog attempt...

for the past 6 years or so i've become increasingly inquisitive about environmental, health and social issues. all the dangerous gases we've been pumping into our atmosphere as though it's a limitless garbage dump and it will never catch up with us. millions of starving people. melting glaciers. species extinctions. droughts. floods. disease. relentless consumption. all the chemicals in the products we use every day, and then we wonder why almost one in two people today will be diagnosed with cancer. it is absolutely stunning how illogical we humans really are as a whole. it seems we've lost our common sense somewhere along the way to becoming the despicable capitalist scum we are today. it seems to me the majority of the general public are completely oblivious to the behind the scenes of our 'perfect' little world over here on the western hemisphere, while millions of people around the world are starving, dealing with extreme air and water pollution, rising temperatures and sea levels, increased tropical storms/cyclones, deforestation, land and mudslides, forest fires, droughts, floods....

we dont feel the need to concern ourselves with what's going on on the other side of the world because it doesn't directly affect us. it's not a major concern for us and i really find this hard to understand. this planet is inhabitted by over six BILLION of us. and we keep on reproducing. that alone is a huge problem. regardless of where the coal is being burned, trees are being slaughtered or oil is being dumped, it ultimately indirectly affects each and every living species on the planet. unfortunately we're too consumed in our pre-occupied careless lifestyles to realize that we're also vulnerable, that we're an endangered species too. whether you're the prime minister or a homeless person on the street is totally irrelevant. we need to start realizing that everything we do in a day, every choice we make, has repercussions.

i recently started checking tags on clothing and other items to see where things are made. hardly anything anymore is made in canada or north america. indonesia, china, turkey, pakistan, india, taiwan, cambodia, thailand. when the average person goes shopping, they don't consider where the clothes were made or the workers who had to make the clothes for very low wages while the big corporations rake in the cash. not to mention the pollution emitted from the factories and the transportation of these items all over the world. they walk into a store, try on a shirt and if they like the way it fits, they buy it. no thinking required.

i do realize it's not completely our fault though. we are not nearly well enough informed. you have to do your own research to find out things that should be common knowledge. i try and share this information with people i know but they tend to be somewhat, if not completely, resistant and doubtful. either they're scared and it's overwhelming for them to deal with or they're just plain ignorant and don't care about the future. i've rubbed off on some people i know and i think globally most people are finally starting to get it. however, i don't think we've acted/are acting quickly enough to actually change what is already being felt on plants and animals worldwide as well as millions of human beings.

i don't want to come off as being totally cynical, but unfortunately, i think we may already have missed the boat.