Destroying Ourselves

IT WOULD SEEM,if we didn't know better, that humanity, collectively and individually has a death wish, a proclivity for self destruction. Maybe, knowing that we must die, try to hasten to process, to get it over with. For two hundred years it has been known that burning coal releases carbon into the atmosphere, and that the atmospheric carbon absorbs heat. For at least thirty five years global warming has been a confirmed fact. for more than one hundred years cigarette smokers have died from lung cancer. For nearly sixty years we have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of cigarette smoking, inundated with warnings.on America's beaches, from the Jersey shore to south Florida, tens of thousands of people ignore Covid 19 and closely congregate, spreading disease and death. And all this, as we like to say, is but the tip of the iceberg. My own self destructive tendencies began early in life. I think I drank more alcohol in high school than I have in all the forty seven years since. We humans are playful little creatures who like to have fun, and to do so are very willing to postpone indefinitely consideration the consequences, immediate and long term. It would seem that we have been having a bit too much fun on this planet, for a bit too long. We all want to possess as much personal material wealth as we possible can wealth which must be manufactured by processes long known to be harmful to the environment. And yet, addicted to our personal wealth, we lack the willingness to change our destructive behavior. One of my family members made the comment that she is entirely unconcerned about what happens beyond her inevitable death. To hell with this quaint philosophy of thinking about the welfare of people seven generations into the future, from native American culture. Therein lies the crux of our problem, and of our seemingly inevitable self destruction.