Cleaning Up

THE GANGES RIVER, which arises high in the Himalayas and flows for hundreds of miles along the border separating India and Pakistan, is among the world's largest, longest, and most polluted waterways. Garbage and sewage is cast into the waters upstream, where swimming is possible but inadvisable, partly due to strong, unpredictable currents, deep parts, and whirlpools. As the river makes its way to its ultimate destination it become ever more polluted, as the millions of people crowded into filthy cities lining its shores almost casually toss their waste material into its sacred waters. You could almost walk across it, without a bridge. (Those of a certain age might remember when Lake Eerie caught fire.) China's Yangtze river suffers a similar afflication. It is debatable as to which nation on Earth is most guilty of failing to protect the delicate ecosystem of planet Earth, and which layer of it has been and is being the most abused by humans; Earth, air, or water. Any bet placed on any of the above would beat the odds in Vega. The United States is certainly a front running candidate. As to which of the world's great rivers endures teh msot mistreatment, again, your pick is as good a anyone's, although generally much progress has been made in cleaning up rivers, lakes, and oceans,but not nearly enough. We shouldn't have to be doing the cleaning up. We the people of planet Earth hould have had the common sense to never have defecated where we dine, so to speak. We have plenty of places and opportunities to properly dispose of our wretched refuse on the planet where harm done would either be ameliorated or eliminated altogether, but we have only one planet to pollute. Even nuclear waste can be buried deep beneath the surface of the Earth, where its deadly harm can at least be mitigated or ignored if we prefer. Long before we were fully aware of atmospheric carbon pollution and resulting climate change we were well aware of the, harm being done by plastic grocery sacks, toxic waste dumps, inadequae sweage systems. Amazing, the amount of damage to our planetary nesting place we do by producing more than eight billion of us, with many more to come, and by giving ourselves a blank check to do with our thrown away materials whatever our whimsical nature impels us to do. We have known better all along. Whatever is most convenient. We know that we are threatening to bring about the extinction of the human species, and that we are already causing the extincion of thousands of other species of aninals. We have until recently been relatively unconcered with the mess we have made and continue to make. Our recently enhanced awareness of our own folly is an encouraging sign, a sign of our dawning awareness of the absolute necessity keeping the kitchen and the latrine separated. (Even George Washington had to be taught this.) High schol "ecology clubs" used to pick up garbage in public places on weekends for extra credit. Now, they and the rest of us must do much more. Hysterical warnings about our behavior and the future of the planet are, of course, a dime a dozen, but are worth every penny, and then some. We can never give ourselves sufficient warnings, take too many proactive measures to protect the environment, or write too many books and essays on this subject. Like Issac Asimov and Frederick Pohl warned in their 1991 book "Our Angry Earth", the alarms are sounding, the red warning lights are flashing. And yes, time is running out, and no matter how many times we repeat this redundantly, it becomes more urgently true by the day. All the damage we have done can be undone. High school environmental protection clubs are a good start. The end game will consist of our decision to begin treating the Earth like a home, rather than a waste dump.