Are we really worried about Earth, or our Reputation?

Some how, maybe it's because of movies like "Inconvenient Truth" (we love movies) or maybe it's because of gorgeous actors standing in front of the cameras talking to us about the importance of the environment, that it's become a fashion trend to suddenly care about the Earth. But the importance of educated input is shot down. Much like how it's 'cool' to worry about humanitarian causes, almost as important as looking cool, so we shop at the GAP... knowing that it's clothing is manufactured by practically in-human child labour factories.
Somewhere, personal responsibility and logic has been replaced by Youtube and Wikipedia.

What do I mean?

Well, let's look at the lineup of "alternative" sources of energy.

Hydrogen fueled cars. Where do we get hydrogen from? A process called Electrolysis, where a tremendous amount of electricity is applied to water, splitting it's molecular structure (2x hydrogen and 1 part oxygen) into oxygen and hydrogen. Sure, the part you always hear is, when you burn hydrogen it emits only pure, clean water. But the big question is...

does it not require a HUGE amount of power to do this? And for such a little amount of fuel?

Kind of like saying, "if I want to make my 1 kilometer walk to the store more efficient, I should first walk 3 kilometers in a semicircle. Once I get there, it's only half of kilometer from there." It makes no logical sense! But instead of educating ourselves on the process, we watch Youtube videos and Wikipedia, which tells us, "C'mon. It's only half the distance from your new point, doesn't that sound better?"

Windmills.

Windmills for alternative power sources in a broad sense works. Using wind power (which is going to blow around anyways) sounds like a viable idea. But there are two major problems with this.

#1: You are disrupting the natural patterns of wind flow over the planet. Creating pockets of hot / cold air, which would be otherwise following a route in it's natural path. Creating pockets of slower wind flow in large areas, as we would need fields of these things to make a dent in our consumption. So, good alternative...fail.

#2: These towers create a large amount of low frequency sound which has proven to affect humans in very negative ways. Creating illnesses ranging from nausea and hallucinations to persistent flu-like symptoms. Also, evidence shows that even small, intermittent exposure to such frequencies actually drive natural wildlife to go mad. Bears exposed to planes flying overhead for minutes, or even seconds have suffered from a madness that has caused bear attacks and violent behavior among themselves as they suffer from the same symptoms as humans. A sense of nausea, panic and hallucinations have driven herds of these animals to maul other animals for no apparent reason, each other and even humans, where no attacks have previously been recorded.

Hydrogen...

Must I say more? If you know anything about physics, it's basic science that you can't get out of ANY system, electrical or mechanical, more than you put in. Actually, it's much less. Think of a light bulb. Electricity goes in, ideally for one thing... creating light. But that's not all it creates. A lot of energy is simply wasted creating heat. A small amount of energy is used to actually create that which we want, light, and a massive amount is wasted creating heat. Even heat lamps and hair dryers. You plug one in wanting heat, and you get a red glow. Light... not what you wanted, but that's what happens. Any time you convert one sources of energy into another, you are WASTING a huge amount of power.

Solar cells...

Probably the most efficient of all alternative power sources. These are great for sparse, personal use, but let's stop and think of what they are. High gloss, black panels. As an alternative power sources for mass consumption, we again (like windmills) would need fields of these panels to power our cities. Heating the air above them, not only do they drive any residual pollutants higher into our atmosphere, they would, once again, disrupt natural wind patterns terribly. Huge pockets of unnaturally heated air would stop weather patterns in their tracks and create weather phenomena that could be devastating.

And any mix of these on a large scale would cause natural disasters unlike we've ever seen.

So what do we do?

I know this might sound elementary, but seriously, we can't change the fact that what we do is harmful to our planet. You can't really change the impact of our use, but we can change our use of what we have.

Walk to the store, instead of finding new ways to power our vehicles to drive there.

Stop the constant drives out to the country, to 'take it in.' Take a bicycle, or simply not go as much. Why are we saying the planet is so important to us, just to pour all this waste into it, put up a tent and say "Ah, yes. We love nature."

Flying is a HUGE problem. I flew to the Bahamas to take it in, when on the plane, I realised, 'wait a second, I'm pouring thousands of pounds of chemical waste directly into the atmosphere at around 35,000 feet to enjoy the planet?'

The simple answer to our problem is, do we NEED to do this? I know some people say they "Need" to get away, but seriously, do you really NEED it? Are we so mentally unstable that we NEED to get away? Or is it a really bad want?

I think a lot of our problems in the North-American society is that most of our wants seem so attainable, possibly even accessible, that we trick ourselves into seeing them as needs. After all, our actually needs are pretty much met and we don't even recognise them. And when wants are taken for needs, be prepared for a huge amount of waste.

Is the environment really as important to us as we think it is? If so, our problem isn't new power sources, the problem is us. Our confusion over wants=needs, and vise-versa.

And when we come to our honest conclusion, let's be honest with ourselves, and the planet.

Do we NEED this? And go from there... then we can say we truly care.

Otherwise, let's be brutally honest. We really WANT our wants, or "need" our wants, and really that's what's important. Realise this and shut up!

Why can't we stop these games?

Why can't we stop turning serious, real issues into fashion statements and movements? Why can't we just take personal responsibility?

I just don't have that answer.