When Is Enough Enough?

It is impossible to predict what will happen when the environmental damage we’re inflicting on this planet reaches a point that large swaths of the population is either poisoned, displaced from their homes, or lie dying of malnutrition, cancer, or infectious diseases spread by mosquitoes.

The problem is that those who are affected the worst, by literally every form of environmental collapse, are the poor.  Regardless of how bad things becomes on this planet, rich people will get by just fine.  They don’t have to live near freeways, near toxic waste dumps, in flooded areas, in regions that are regularly consumed by wildfires, or parts of the world frequently devastated by hurricanes.

They will always be able to afford whatever they like to eat, even when desertification and ocean acidification have drastically reduced the food supply.  Potable water scarcity?  Coming soon, but won’t affect the wealthy.

Poor people by contrast are already in areas of greater toxicity, and they can’t afford to move.  Thus they must suffer the brunt of whatever climate upheaval and industrial pollution bring them.

It is for this reason that change may never come at all, i.e., there is no pressure on those who call the shots.

The only hope here lies in removing money from the law-making process.  This is why there is so much interest (among decent people) in amending the Constitution so as to overturn “Citizens United,” which, since 2010, has enabled corporations to spend without limit so as to create a legal environment that optimizes their profits–at the cost of the well-being of everyone on Earth.