I have noticed during recent trips to the grocery store, the ever increasing number of new products in fancy packaging, sitting on the shelves. Twenty feet or more of store space is taken up with only yogurt products. The enhanced waters and sodas often take up two entire aisles. I keep seeing more and more packaged mixes of everything imaginable, for those who do not have a clue how to prepare a meal. Super markets continue to grow in size in order to make room for the ever growing number of products like plant based dairy and meat substitutes. Walmarts have become Super Walmarts. Those individuals who have become obese and/or diabetic, must maneuver motorized grocery carts through the aisles, to the annoyance of other customers, in order to purchase more of the very products that made them obese to begin with.
When I look at these products. I see millions of glass bottles, plastic containers, and aluminum cans, most of which will never be recycled. We seem to be slipping further and further away from self-sufficiency and sustainability. We should all be alarmed. Only a handful of individuals, families, and businesses bother to recycle. The recycle centers take a limited number of those things that are labeled recyclable. Most will take only #1 and #2 plastics, and only if you have rinsed them and removed the caps and lids; so often these simply get added to the landfill anyway.
Glyphosates continue to be sold and used profusely despite the proven dangers. The billion dollar cosmetic industry with its packaging, colors, dyes, added ingredients, and preservatives, occupy large spaces in retail stores. If you were to follow every product back to its source, you would find shocking discoveries about the practices that go into getting those products on the shelves. Most frightening of all, are the many chemical concoctions that are sold as drugs, vaccines, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, cleaners, and air fresheners; and that are found in our homes, our clothing, and our bodies.
This year has brought with it record high temperatures in the northwest, rain and flooding in typically dry areas, and freak snow storms. The year is only half over and hurricane season is still ahead of us. There are those who still refuse to believe that global warming is a reality on our planet. Many continue to deny that human activity has anything to do with it.
What will it take to spur us into action? We can blame the occurrence of disasters on the government, on the oil refineries, on the agri-businesses, and on everyone but ourselves. What are we doing individually – or not doing, to contribute to the mounting problems our world faces? In the end, it all comes down to individuals. We as individuals are part of the whole. We are one people, one planet. What we do (or do not do) individually, affects us all.
