Saving the environment from the environmentalists

"Do you know how much carbon you are emitting just by smoking cigarettes?"
"No." Puff.
"Around 5 to 10 grams per cigarette. How many do you smoke a day?"
"Let's say 5-6." Another puff.
"Hmmm, that's easily more than 50 grams of carbon. Just by smoking."
"Proud of it." Puff. Puff. Puff.
"You are impossible."
"Don't these plants need carbon in the first place to grow up? I am only releasing that back. Balancing out."
"Hmmm, that's an interesting argument..."
" ." Puff. And sigh.

***

Last week we had a class about environment, global warming, conservation and all that gobbledeegook. In my humble and simple opinion, environmentalism is the easiest subject for a person to get "expert" status.

You can even take this crash course: Environmentalism for dummies
Step 1: Read a book (most favourably Rachel Carson's Silent Spring)
Step 2: Close your mind after reading, and don't open it to any new or contradictory ideas
Step 3: Sport something that proclaims you to be a rebel--like a beard, or a green peace tee (you can even listen to a rock band that support any stupid green cause)
Step 4: Read another book (since you have already read Carson, move on to Carl Sagan)
Step 5: Coin your own words to save mother earth (like that Sagan word--"nuclear winter")
Step 6: Convert another person (or plant a tree, if possible)
And....KABOOOM!!! Here you are: the new-age environmentalist.


From here you can go on educating the world about the dangers of carbon emissions. And if you really grasp what it means, you can enter the fascinating new world of global warming. In this world you can accumulate any data you need to build a climate chart that predicts the end of the world 5-10 years before what another dummy predicted.

In short, even if you don't know whether it would rain tomorrow, you can have fun predicting apocalypse, and thereby scaring the shit out of other peace-loving human beings.

What a way to live! If you are coming from a middle class family, the least you could do is hold a placard and shout for a decrease in carbon emissions. You can ask the government to slow down industrialisation, shut down factories or switch to greener energy resources (the fun is you don't even have to know what this "green energy" means!).

And keep your eyes wide shut if you come to know of the fact that for every reduce in carbon emission, we are reducing industrial production, which reduces employment, which in turn reduces earnings. Somewhere, somebody will miss a meal. Or someone's child will die.

And why should we care? We are so busy saving earth.

***

Hell, this is why I am tired of this environmentalism. Last week's class had also these (to be fair, it was pretty good) and more. By the time the lecturer finished the class we had about 5 minutes left.

"Any questions?" He asked.

I had many. But I decided not to ask the question. So I am having my catharsis here. The question is...well....

Since childhood I have been studying things like "Nature is evolving" and that "survival of the fittest" "change is the only constant thing in nature" etc etc.

I learn that no two centuries are the same ecologically, and that for survival we must adapt to changes in nature. Stress on "adapt".

And then, all of a sudden I learn that the environment must be conserved for posterity. "Conserve our environment."

So, my questions are:
1. Why are we talking about conserving the environment, when conservation itself is against the laws of nature?
2. Isn't it because we are so selfish as a species that we are so preoccupied with our own survival?
3. And we want to paint this blatant selfishness as "good for nature". Don't we?
4. Since reducing carbon emissions in fractions aren't going to affect us, we can shout from the rooftops, can't we?
5. And what about all the Malaria deaths in Africa when we banned DDT? (courtesy Rachel Carson)

***

I didn't ask, and hence I didn't get the answer. I am sure I wouldn't have gotten one satisfactory answer. Friend, If you have come this far reading this, please go to google and search "malaria deaths by ddt" or "silent spring deaths".

And please open you mind. Puff. Period.