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How could a self-destructive human become environment-friendly?

The pressure is overwhelming to acknowledge the unsustainability of our lifestyle. Despite being shown photografic evidence, we let the process go on.  How can this narcissistic species  afford to neglect its own future? Is our intelligence overrated and are we fatally inconsistent?

turtle

I suppose that the answer may root in our self-destructive nature. We exploit our own body by clinging to bad habits although we know that it is the organism to contain us until the final day. Most of these self-destructive habits are deliberetaly pursued as they feel so good, later due to the difficulty of withdrawal. Besides we do not excel at long-term planning. Experts say humans actually live for the moment and a limited future.

Furthermore, humans are attracted by both actual and imaginary danger. We tend to solve lasting conflicts by using weapons and massacring peoples. In peacetime, we enjoy watching thrillers and horror movies. Pleasure center of the brain is activated by violence, which has always been crucial to get territory and food.

Can anybody expect a health-unconscious being to function on an environment-friendy way? Is it realistic to require eco-conscious decisions from individuals who smoke cigarettes carrying lethal health warnings?

Looking back on the evolution of mankind, I would attribute our success partially to our conscious flexibility. Our current omnipresence could be achieved by being off the initial track and forcing ourselves into new artificial habits. Environment-awareness may become a core value for future generations by means of appropriate socialization, as the love of your neighbour managed to.

Here, I am trapped in a very common mistake and the source of so many troubles. I tend to shift the responsibity to our offsprings. I expect them to follow a more developed approach, where my generation seems to fail. Am I hopeless?

 

Our wall of shame:

https://www.exposingtruth.com/20-images-that-show-the-human-impact-on-the-planet/

69 comments

  1. Hi,

    This is an interesting piece of writing. People need to see the bigger picture – a lot of people only see what effects them directly.

    One day this will effect people directly but by then it will be too late. We need to act now and live mindfully.

    X

    Liked by 5 people

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  2. Loved this post! and your style in writing!! How could you tell everyone to be kind to nature, and treat it with no harm!! it’s so difficult! Hope with your posts you will spread awarness! Thanks for sharing!!

    Liked by 3 people

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  7. Some very good points made about our self destructive nature. I wonder if this is inherent or learned behaviour? Humans have mastered copycat behaviour. Even our greatest engineers look to nature to solve structural problems. Our development has been exponential because we have taken the best of behaviours present in other animals to serve our food gathering and shelter building skill set. But this same trait in us, also exposes us to the possibility of learning the wrong things. If we don’t find ways to filter out bad examples, our children will likely turn out even worse and they certainly won’t be able to fix the destruction that they are about to inherit.

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    • I agree. The problem is that we have modified the balance in nature by interfering with the natural processes. Other species do not have to worry about plastic or CO2 because they did not transformed their organisms’ operation so significantly and abruptly than us. In nature, processes are far longer and they have time to adjust.

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      • Time is something we no longer have. We have known (or at least the scientific community and their corporate sponsors have known), that our activities have polluted our air land and water for the last 100 years. They too, have left the idea of ‘cleanup’ to those who would come after them. Some even misguidedly thought that the environment could do the cleanup. One only has to look at London, UK in 1953 to see that air pollution was not being mitigated by nature…hence the clean air act of that time, and later the introduction of smokeless zones necessitating that everyone switch from open coal fires to gas or electric central heating in their homes. But industry was never penalised, and 50 years on, we are struggling to absorb the idea that even what we did 100 years ago started the unstoppable chain reaction of melting glaciers in areas most of us have never seen. We are a very shortsighted species. Now we can only learn and adapt to live with climate change and ultimately, if we implement better practice, the process might slow enough to allow us and other species to adapt to what will become an increasingly inhospitable world.

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      • I don’t think problem is because of any particular material.as you mentioned #Plastics. I think problem is we are not able to take care of garbage we generate. Just for example, people dump about 6.35 Million tons of garbage into oceans each year responsible for killing 100,000 marine creatures and about million sea birds a year. You can find out more on the subject on http://www.plasticishere.wordpress.com

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  9. I’ve often wondered this, especially when so many make it so easy not to be environmentally conscious.

    Why do so many things come with so much packaging, for example? Do we really need it?

    Why do we produce so many new clothes each year when thrift stores are bursting with them?

    I don’t have answers. But it seems as if we need a complete revamp, and that is usually driven by the young.

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    • I am afraid the company owners and politicians make huge profits on these transactions. On the other hand wages are paid from our consumption. People can not go back to the fields to do manual jobs as we have already machines to do it. If there is no consumption each year (cloths, gadgets, cars, etc etc) who will pay wages? However, the lower the consumption the lower the necessary min salary. So it is very complex, but we have spoilt this we have to fix this.

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      • The problem I think is not with consumption but the issue is Recycling industry hasn’t got that much developed in parallel to production. If that is encouraged than its possible to employees more people to industry and having cleaned environment too. United nations have declared a report mentioning ONLY 22-45% of plastic generated is recycled/treated . Remaining goes to landfill or ocean.

        Look at http://www.plasticishere.wordpress.com to know more on how messed up our waste management system is

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Media actually facilitates living in a wrong way, consumerism, living at and on the screen and changing the body in accordance with trendy looks. There are so many useless and harmful products out there that we should wonder at times how we are still alive. Environment friendly is successfully eradicated by global corporations. Instead of going global, individual and small, versatile should be supported. Profit taking will eventually kill the humans. I am seeing always it as the root of lots of bad habits, etc. because they are promoted. Celebrities and wealthy promote the extreme over-consumption which depletes the resources and from all this destruction only a few are benefiting while all the rest is suffering.

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  12. Putting aside any conflict i have with the phrasing of the question my answer is: by appealing to their most basic nature/instincts.

    Humans have two basic motivating factors: seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, both of which have relatively short time spans in that we generally tend to seek the immediate pleasure over longer term pleasure and avoid more strongly an immediate pain than a longer term one (we put off pain as much as possible and gain pleasure while we have the chance).

    A truly intelligent individual is able to appreciate the concept of delayed gratification and enduring a little pain now for less pain later, but the vast majority of humans are not all that intelligent.

    it’s up to the intelligent ones to show the others the way. (If that is indeed the best ‘solution’ to the problem – frankly, i believe the world has far too many people already and most consume far more than is environmentally sustainable long-term so the best solution would seem to be to kill a couple of billion or so off as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

    But that idea probably won’t win me any friends 😉

    love.

    Liked by 3 people

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    • I am afraid that the most intelligent ones are not always the strongest ones, and they are not even backed by the most powerful ones.
      We are shown pictures about contaminated water, soil and air and yet people/industries pursue the same habits. These problems are proved to cause “pain” even in the short term, but they are not worried enough to change.
      Honestly, I doubt our intelligence as the lasting harmful effect have been known long ago. And we are warned about our own future, not only the extinction of some nice, exotic species losing their habitats at the other end of the world.

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      • I have made the observation much more than once recently that, on the available evidence ( gained through media mostly), humans as a species are now more devolving than evolving. I plan to go against that flow! 😉

        love

        Liked by 3 people

  16. I’m 1/2 Ojibwa. I live on the land of my heritage. Today the lakes are polluted. The forest almost gone and new houses being built when so many stay empty. Old Ohio Native American saying. “Is white man crazy? He won’t be happy till all things beautiful are gone.” When men do to nature. I do not understand.

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  18. You are so right and the questions you pose are important ones. Our politicians are always talking about ‘growing the economy” but if the economy grows and grows without stopping, doesn’t that mean the destruction of our planet? Why not STOP this relentless growing/consumerism, and pull back a little? If the wealthy were to share their wealth, there would be enough for everyone to live comfortably. We don’t have to give up ALL our creature comforts. The problem is, we live in a very lazy society. Although I care about this issue very much, I do catch myself doing things that are not as conservationist as I’d like to be. It’s something I continue to ponder as I pick up plastic items unnecessarily tossed out of cars or at picnic areas where the nearest recycling bin is 10 feet away. The picture you posted at the top of this post is shocking, yet shows how animals sometimes manage to survive our thoughtless wastefulness.

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    • I keep wondering about the same questions. How can we be so irresponsible? Why are the responsible not in jail? Trying to avoid exaggeration, some measures or decisions taken by company owners and governments are equal to mass destruction on the long term.

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  19. Reblogged this on Wanderlust and Wonderment and commented:
    This is a reblog on an issue I care very much about. The author of this post and the questions she poses are important ones. Our politicians are always talking about ‘growing the economy” but if the economy grows and grows without stopping, doesn’t that mean the destruction of our planet? Why not STOP this relentless growing/consumerism, and pull back a little? If the wealthy were to share their wealth, there would be enough for everyone to live comfortably. We don’t have to give up ALL our creature comforts. The problem is, we live in a very lazy society. Although I care about this issue very much, I do catch myself doing things that are not as conservationist as I’d like to be. It’s something I continue to ponder as I pick up plastic items unnecessarily tossed out of cars or at picnic areas where the nearest recycling bin is 10 feet away. The picture she posted at the top of this post is shocking, yet shows how species sometimes manage to survive in spite of thoughtless wastefulness.

    Liked by 3 people

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  20. This was such a compelling post!! So true…and hard-hitting!
    “Furthermore, humans are attracted by both actual and imaginary danger. We tend to solve lasting conflicts by using weapons and massacring peoples. “… couldn’t have said it better!!
    And those images in the wall of shame!! Heart-wrenching and so disgusting of humans!! We fail to learn from our mistakes ..or have become so blind in self-pleasure that cant see the long term effects!!

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      • You are right!! We keep on saying humans are the most intelligent species!! But in reality we are selfish, hypocrite,scheming, faking, hiding mistakes and hell-bent on cutting the same branch which is supporting us!! We call ourselves intelligent ie one who is supposed to learn from past mistakes….but we never do!! And now we are again facing conflicts and global war! I sometimes wonder if there is alien life somewhere and they come to visit earth and get to know how humans are destroying their own home…what will they think…that how foolish these humans are!!

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  21. An excellent post. That poor turtle. The thought of harming animals is so unkind and thoughtless. I do see a lot of humans who are so self-absorbed, especially in this era. It’s not just teen and young kids either. Once an old boyfriend told me, “Men do evil things for no reason.” I asked him why and he had no answer. I say all people are capable of harm if they feel insecure or just mad. Look at Charles Manson and the many violent people in this world. I am so tired of it. A lot of films and TV are violent and this does affect the masses. A lot of people are easily brainwashed and programmed. Thanks for sharing this post and best wishes.

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    • Thank you for reading. I think that humans have come up with a lot of notions about rights, law and moral codes. We have realised that some acts of ours really destroy other creatures and we find them immoral. However, these acts are inherent in the way species survive on this planet. We have created the idea of a noble human caring for their neghbours and surroundings. However, this approach requires a lot of compromises.

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  22. Truth is, everything on the planet human or otherwise has to thrive off other living things to survive. It’s freakish to me. I wish I could live off air. There is something wicked about our world and beautiful too. A conundrum are we.

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  24. Hello! I thought your post was incredibly insightful! I work on these issues of consumption on a daily basis. I have a blog EcoMouthPiece where I discuss various human related impacts connected to climate change and methods of action. Action to change our habits and effectively fight our self- and nature- destruction. We do not need to leave it to our children! Thank you for sharing your thoughts you are not alone!

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