If I Live to be 100

Let’s take a moment and reflect on just how much has changed in the past 100 years since 1919.

In the United States women gained the right to vote, television became popularized, World War II was fought and pulled the nation out of depression, the nation experienced the civil rights movement, 18 presidents have come and left office, the internet was invented and has risen to become instrumental to many of our lives, plus countless other notable moments in just the span of 100 years.

And that’s just a tiny sliver of what has happened in this nation in the past century.

Just think of all that has happened around the globe in the past 100 years. There has been so much. Good and not so good.

Now why think of this?

After reading Cheche Winnie’s post ‘What Will We Tell Them?‘ a creative post about what will we tell future generations about what has happened to our planet in the wake of environmental destruction, it really got me thinking deeply into what may be in store.

Will my generation be the last to experience a tiger? Or what about a gorilla? A rhino? Will there be a wild place untouched by plastic?

These are some serious things to think about when in fact they are all very real possibilities. To think if manage to live to be 100, a feat in itself, how in 2098, all of these things, and more, could happen.

It’s terrifying.

What will this world be for my future children? Or what about there children? Will there be anything left?

We all need to change. Or else, there will be no future.

The air will be unbreathable due to pollution, the water poisoned, the soil will be barren, ice caps melted, storms raging, food becoming scarce, countless species committed to memory ceasing to walk the Earth, and so much more.

We have started something that will quickly move out of our control if we do not start to act.

Mankind needs to realize that out environment, our planet, is our most important asset. Not oil, not the economy, not plastic, not corporations or factories.

We have wounded our planet. And we’re the only ones who can fix it before it becomes terminal and it is too late.

So, let me ask you:

What do you think will happen if you live to be 100? What will future generations have left?

Almost 8 Billion

How many people are on this planet now?

According to the World Population Clock we are at approximately 7.7 billion people. Yup, you heard me right.

Almost eight billion people are alive, all at the same time, right now.

Isn’t that crazy?? I feel like just a few years ago the human race was just hitting the seven-billion mark and scientists thought that was crazy!

So I bet your thinking yes this is crazy! But what does it have to do with conservation?

Well here let me connect these dots for you.

After reading a post by Cheche Winnie (they’ve got some really cool stuff going on you should check them out) about the relationship we have with wildlife and farming, it really got me to thinking about how the practice of farming is approached and how some versions of it can really harm wildlife and habitats that is in our better interests to preserve. And the more people we have on this planet the more food we need produced, primarily by farming, to feed everyone.

In Cheche Winnie’s post she outlines the issue that we often kill off predatory wildlife, like wolves, lions, cougars, bears, etc. because they kill or harm our farm animals, but when we have these predatory animals in captivity, we feed them the very livestock, the ones we wanted them dead for, to keep them alive.

So what gives?

We can’t exchange the whole population of a species for the safety of our livestock and keep a select few held against their will in captivity. It is not right and it is certainly not fair.

With the climbing population rates of humans around the world, more and more of this is bound to happen as we creep into and onto previously untouched habitat space. This would have quite the negative impact not just on predatory animals, but on ecosystems and the environment as a whole.

The more land we develop for our use and purposes, we destroy more of the natural world, of the sustainability, the biodiversity, the planet as a whole.

Wow, this post got pretty dark pretty quick, but let me bring it back from the edge of that black hole here on this Monday.

We can still change.

In fact, we must change if we want any hope of things ever getting better. The first place to start would be our farming practices.

We must aim to make them as sustainable for the climate of the environment that they are taking place in as we can. Yup that would mean if you live in the desert it probably isn’t the best idea to want to start a watermelon farm.

By using sustainable techniques , we can make farmland last for much longer, destroy less habitat, and overall have a much less negative impact on our environment.

If you want to learn a little bit more on sustainable agriculture check out these sites for a ton of good info:

United States Department of Agriculture

Agriculture Sustainability Institute

One thing is for sure,

We must remember we are guests on this planet, not owners.