There we all are, staring raptly into the heavens, transfixed by the supermoon-lunar eclipse, and voraciously reading the latest news about the discovery of water on Mars.
Meanwhile, down here on Earth, our planet is falling to pieces around us and nobody seems to care in the slightest.
Here on our part of Earth, we’re in the middle of a federal election campaign. Which you’d figure would be a great time to be talking about the environment.
Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Conversations about the stuff that should matter – like, for starters, clean air, clean water, green energy, and how we can create a workable economy that’s also sustainable for the planet – seem to be taking a backseat to things that really shouldn’t matter quite as much.
Not to suggest that terrorism isn’t worthy of a second thought, but let’s get serious: Which is the bigger threat to life as we know it – ISIS, or the very existence of our planet?
Yes, we need to talk about national security, about foreign policy, about job creation, about child care, about seniors’ pensions, about taxes, and on, and on, and on. But it’s sad that we’ve made it this far into an election campaign without any significant environmental debate taking place front and centre.
The sidelining of Green Party leader Elizabeth May is a big part of the reason, of course. When May is given a chance to speak (or makes her own chance, as she’s been forced to do when she’s left out of the big show), she’s an excellent spokesperson for our planet. And she has proven herself to be far more than just a one-trick pony: she understands how to put the environment into the context of all of those other issues involved in running a nation.
Unfortunately, however, she’s fighting against the head-in-the-sand mentality that seems to be preferred by most of us when dealing with environmental issues.
Mind you, May has some big guns on her side: no less a personage than Pope Francis has been championing the environment, going so far as to tell the United Nations that the environment has the same rights as humanity itself.
Here’s hoping that they can get the rest of the world’s leaders to start listening to them.
And us? We need to force our leaders to care by making the environment our top priority, starting now.
It’s great to stare at the stars. But let’s not look at them so long that we forget to clean up the gutter we’re living in.
