Planet? What planet?

I really must urge the good and intelligent people of the world to stop using the word planet…

When we’re talking about the environment, I mean; when we say we’re killing the planet; we’re ruining the planet; we have to save the planet…

The planet is a great mass of material caught in our favorite star’s gravitational orbit. I don’t know of any power we currently have to interfere with that.

And the pinheads of the world sort of know that. The deniers of the world (who I happen to believe should be logged in a database by the way, so that if depopulation ever becomes the popular solution we’ll know exactly where to start), who obediently follow their feelings so much more than logic or education, have very trustworthy feelings that this great big planet is not going anywhere. And they’re right in the short term, regardless of climate change, but of course no world in the universe is permanent and in the long term the sun has big nasty explosive plans for us, regardless if there’s a tree, bee or human being left on this surface or not (in a couple billion years).

My point is: Climate change warnings sound ever so less relevant when talking about the planet than when you talk about the actual item of concern, which is of course the biosphere.

We need to talk about the biosphere, and not just to be accurate, but so that the unconvinced might pay a little more attention and that people everywhere might begin to take a bigger interest in what the biosphere really is: which is of course a fragile, limited portion of the planet which must exist in order to support life.

And It is not just air and trees. It is also (for all intents and purposes, if not precisely according to official terminology) soil, oceans, fresh water, wetlands, biodiversity, minerals and toxic filtration (I.e.: the oil in the ground which belongs there for a reason and that only lunatics would dig up and burn, thus destroying the system and - to boot - releasing all those toxins into the air where they least belong). All these components are completely interlinked and dependent on one another and vital to the biosphere and vital to the existence of life, and all of them are very seriously compromised and becoming more so every single day and with every single industrial activity we indulge in. There is in essence a measurable sum of biosphere capacity which is rapidly shrinking. Some of these components are more than half destroyed. Yes, that’s a fact, and most of them, in the case of individual failure, will take the whole biosphere down with it, baby, cradle and all.

Biosphere, folks. Biosphere. In a sane world it would be the most popular word of the day.

Not that I’m claiming to be especially sane these days. I’m just saying.

Cheers!

FWG