Humans haven't always been as wasteful and greedy as we are now. That's a relatively new development (as in over the last century or so). Our ancestors actually knew how to live minimally and with little waste. We can thank them for saving the planet for us to enjoy, but we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that the things we do now will affect future generations. We already have a global solid waste crisis. We're running out of places to store our trash. And the scary thing is that most of the trash in our landfills came from the last half century!! So yes. We have survived as a planet for a really really long time. But again, no other generation of humans has ever been more abusive to the planet than we are today. And it's only getting worse. Our childrens' children are the ones who will suffer.
But we won't be around, so who cares.
ETA: Don't get me wrong. I'm not foolish enough to think that a few biodegradable chip bags are going to save the planet. But society's general attitude of personal comfort over concern for the world as a whole is discouraging.
Did anyone hear a loud you thought sunchips bags loud scream from the midwest?
Please, please go and do some serious reading in science and History while you are at it and throw a little geography in also. There are so many mis statements in this post I don't know where to start.
Here's a goody and I bet most don't know but do you know we have more standing forest NOW in the US than we did a century ago?
Our forefathers were not conservers they used what they wanted and didn't think about the future at all- ever hear of the near extinction of the bisons from over hunting?
How about the dust bowl from over planting?
How about lakes so polluted you could walk on them?
Air so thick with smoke you had to wash your windows every morning if you wanted to see out?
we aren't running out of places to store our trash we are running out of cheap places close to populated areas. this country has so much open space we could put trash on it for 100's of years. Of course the best thing we could do would be burn it for energy but the uninformed make too big of a stink when that is proposed
PS. one of the reasons there is more trash in the landfills in the last 50 yrs is DUH we don't burn it anymore!!! and more population nothing else. they didn't used to store their trash they burned it.
We take better care of the earth now than ever and the world is a much,much cleaner than it was 100 yrs ago.
