Earth Day

Just thought it was worth reprinting this eloquent rant by Bill Maher, from Friday night's show:

From now on Earth Day really must be a year round thing. And in honor of this Earth Day, starting Monday supermarket clerks must stop putting the big bottle of detergent with a handle on it in a plastic bag. I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but you see that handle you just lifted the detergent with?

I can use that same handle to carry the detergent to my car. And stop putting my liquor in a smaller paper sack before you put it in the big paper sack with my other stuff. What, are you afraid my groceries will think less of me if they see I've been drinking? Trust me, the broccoli doesn't care, and the condoms already know.

Here's a quote from Albert Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Well, guess what? The bees are disappearing. In massive numbers. All around the world.

And if you think I'm being alarmist and that, "Oh, they'll figure out some way to pollinate the plants..." No, they've tried. For a lot of what we eat, only bees work. And they're not working. They're gone. It's called Colony Collapse Disorder, when the hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, and all that's left are a few queens and some immature workers -- like when a party winds down at Elton John's house.

But I think we're the ones suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder. Because although nobody really knows for sure what's killing the bees, it's not al-Qaeda, and it's not God doing some of his Old Testament shtick, and it's not Winnie the Pooh. It's us.

It could be from pesticides, or genetically modified food, or global warming, or the high-fructose corn syrup we started to feed them. Recently it was discovered that bees won't fly near cell phones -- the electromagnetic signals they emit might screw up the bees navigation system, knocking them out of the sky. So thanks guy in line at Starbucks, you just killed us. It's nature's way of saying, "Can you hear me now?"

Last week I asked: If it solved global warming, would you give up the TV remote and go back to carting your fat ass over to the television set every time you wanted to change the channel. If that was the case in America, I think Americans would watch one channel forever. If it comes down to the cell phone vs. the bee, will we choose to literally blather ourselves to death? Will we continue to tell ourselves that we don't have to solve environmental problems -- we can just adapt: build sea walls instead of stopping the ice caps from melting. Don't save the creatures of the earth and oceans, just learn to eat the slime and jellyfish that nothing can kill, like Chinese restaurants are already doing.

Maybe you don't need to talk on your cell phone all the time. Maybe you don't need a bag when you buy a keychain. Americans throw out 100 billion plastic bags a year, and they all take a thousand years to decompose. Your children's children's children's children will never know you but they'll know you once bought batteries at the 99 cent store because the bag will still be caught in the tree.

Except there won't be trees. Sunday is Earth Day. Please educate someone about the birds and the bees, because without bees, humans become the canary in the coal mine, and we make bad canaries because we're already such sheep.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I'll have to admit that I certainly don't have an unblemished record when it comes to protecting our environment. I mean, we do what we can - relentlessly recycling, walking or biking when possible, turning off unnecessary lighting - but, in a house of 6, I know we generate an inordinate amount of non-degradable trash, waste oceans of hot water (my teenaged daughter being the primary culprit), and do tool around to soccer games and school plays and anywhere else we must drive in a 6-year-old SUV. Hey, it's the only vehicle in which everybody fits, and we can barely afford groceries right now, much less a new hybrid.

But what I don't understand about those opposed to the very idea of acknowledging that we, the people, have had a definite and negative effect on our environment - and therefore should do more to correct our shortcomings - is their adamant refusal to, at the very least, err on the side of caution.

What I mean is this. For years, these chiefly Republican naysayers have told us that if there is even a remote chance that sacrificing our right of privacy, our freedom to dissent, and our adherence to time-honored codes of human conduct might stop a terrorist act, it's something we must do.

If there's even a chance that Saddam might have WMD, we must start an unprovoked war with Iraq.

If there's even a chance that a first-trimester fetus might constitute human life, we must outlaw abortion.

If there's even a chance that someone might prevent a crime by being armed to the teeth, we must provide unfettered access to all manner of guns.

Yet, this same attitude is chucked out the window when it comes to the "chance" that inaction might lead to the destruction of our entire planet! To me, this inconsistency is nothing short of insanity. 'Cause if there's even a chance that every competent scientist on the globe is right - and not simply a "librul anti-troop Bush-hater" - then how can these same "1 percent"-ers resist (with knee-jerk reliability) doing anything about it?

There's more than a "chance" that time is running out, kids. I'm going to honor this Earth Day by pledging to do better by my celestial home. What about you?