NO ONE LIVES FOREVER ... BUT WE TRY

No one lives forever. There is no doubt that it often appears that we expect to, and there is definitely no effort lost in living as long as possible. The day before he died, my Father very stoically told his attending physician that he'd had enough. Up to that point, however, he had done everything the physicians said to stay alive.

Actually part of that effort is a bit ironic. My Father had been a smoker since high school. He went from smoking a pipe, which he claimed he didn't inhale, to being a moderately heavy cigarette smoker. He learned to smoke cigarettes in the US Army. We all did. In my Dad's day they got Lucky Strikes or Camels in their C-rations. When I was in we got Winstons or Salems in our C-rations. I quit smoking in 1977. I tried never to be the overwhelming crusader that many ex-smokers become. I tried always to remember how hard it was to quit. It took me a year in the day when we didn't have patches and gums. I did it by using extremely small amounts of snuff - so small you couldn't see it and I didn't have to spit - and reducing that until I could go without. I remember reading that nicotine is the most addictive drug in the world and that if, after many years, I were to smoke one cigarette I'd be as addicted as the day I quit. I don't know if that's factual in any way, but I sure wouldn't argue with it or be willing to test it. ( If you're the technical type I would recommend an article by Katherine C. Goedeke and Stephen T. Tiffany that was first published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (J Abnorm Psycho. Nov 2008; 117(4): 896-909) entitled On the Nature of Nicotine Addiction: A Taxometric Analysis which you can read at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2876731.) From 1977 until around 2006 I would take any casual opening I could find to discourage my father smoking. Short digression: you need to know that my father was the consumate academic. Nevertheless he would insist that he wasn't addicted. Sure Dad. That's why, when everyone went back to Ireland for a visit, you flew on Aer Lingus instead of on US Air where we had enough traveler points for a free ticket. He thought that Aer Lingus still permitted smoking on their flights. Wow, was he angry when they turned out to be smoke free!

Nothing made an impact on my Father's smoking. He had COPD for many years. It actually traced back to lung damage just prior to landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day, but it was exacerbated by ... guess what ... smoking. My Father was a disabled veteran and so he saw the physicians at the VA frequently in the last 10 years or so of his life. When he was 83 years old and had smoked for 66 years of his life a VA physician said “Dr. Vance, if you don't stop smoking right now you're going to die.” He stopped right then and never put another cigarette in his mouth. He lived another seven years.

The thing about this story is that almost everyone would do the same in order to continue living. I spent almost my entire career working in health care institutions and I did have a couple of patients who were so determined to keep smoking that they actually smoked on the day they died ... died from lung cancer. But that was extremely rare. If we told a patient that if they continued smoking they would probably die within the year and if they stopped they might get another year or so of life, they would almost always quit smoking.

We all want to live. We all know a person who insisted upon chemotherapy or radiation right up to the end of life because they never stopped believing that they were going to live.

The Earth is dying. We know that in, hopefully, several billion years our sun will start changing into a giant red and the earth will be engulfed by the expanding star. Even if I won't be there to see it, I really would like to believe that the Earth will live out its full potential existence as a vibrant, living planet. Wouldn't you?

Now part of my desire that the Earth continue as a vibrant, living planet, not just exist as a dead rock, as long as possible is because I believe that I'm a part of the Earth. It's kind of a Buddhist version of conservation of mass and energy. Even if I'm not alive in the form of a human animal, I am still a part of the whole. As long as the earth lives, I live, even if I'm not experiencing what we call consciousness. (Then again, maybe I will. Who knows for sure?) Another way in which this immortality, for lack of a better term, is played out is in the lives of our progeny. While my physical remains join with the rest of the Earth, my progeny carry me in their genetic code. Rather neat! Modern science can trace one's roots back to early man through their DNA. That means that I'm going to hitch a ride forward. I really don't want to see the end of the world before it's time.

Now here's where the rubber hits the proverbial road. Most scientist believe that the human animal is like smoking . . . it's killing the Earth. I really hate to think of myself as being a part of a killer, but, then again, I have to face reality. We are raping the land. Look at the tremendous scars, many which can be seen from space, that we have left in our quest for wealth and comfort. It's rather scary!

                                                           http://imgfave.com/search/deterioration

We are causing the extinction of other species. I'm reminded of the quote “if the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” I tried to research the scientific evidence for this statement but kept running into the argument that it was not Albert Einstein who first said it. (Here's a site to get you started: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-bees/ ) I finally stopped because this blog isn't just about bees. Bees are an example. Bees are phenomenal pollinators. Even in 1907 the New York Department of Agriculture had estimated that more than 100,000 variety of plants would cease to exist without bees. We are killing off species of insects and animals that help our food grow so we then think that we just need to add a chemical to the soil or change the plant DNA, and end up poisoning ourselves. We almost lost the symbol of our great country, the Bald Eagle, with our use of the chemical pesticide DDT, and we wouldn't have been far behind. The human animal really doesn't do very well at thinking things through, does it? Even what we like to call a “lesser animal”, while persuing food, will reach a point that it will stop. It realizes that stopping might mean being hungry but it will still be alive to hunt another day.

We are poisoning the air, the land and the water. This is the only air and water we have. We can't send out for more. Aquafina doesn't come from off planet. 

Professor Pamela Smith, professor of biology at Madisonville Community College, had a 200 level scientific inquiry class do a study which they ended up presenting at a multi-college science conference. They took soil from places near their homes and noted if the soil was from land that had not been disturbed by coal mining, soil that was from land that had been mined before the reclamation law, or soil from land that had been mined after the law. They attempted to grow radishes in each soil. The radish is know to be a very easy plant to grow. The first time they watered their plants they noticed that water just ran off the mined soil. Even the soil from land that had been mined after the reclamation law could not sustain life. Professor Smith knew what was going to happen but she wanted her students to test for themselves.  What made the biggest impact was that the soils were collected from right by where they lived. 

If we pollute or poison the water in this lake we will poison all of the western coast of the United States.

                                                         www.wikimedia.com

If we pollute or poison the water in this lake, we will poison the water in Hudson Bay through which passes almost all of the water for eastern Canada and northeastern US.

                                                         www.wikimedia.com

If we poison or pollute the water in this lake, we will poison the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers flowing through the heartland of America.

These are all pictures of lakes in Glacier National Park, the point called The Triple Divide Peak. Check out this map of the North America water effected by the Triple Divide Peak alone.

I don't know about you, but I find this scary stuff!  I'm certainly terrified. Aren't you?  And I haven't even gotten to global warming, fracking, tar sands oil, drilling in the Artic, etc.  

BUT there will be those who insist that earth goes through changes and cycles, etc., and we are to expect such things as global warming, etc., never mind the damage which is undeniably human. To this I must say 'yes, some of the changes we see around us may come from natural causes,' even if you don't want to accept what we can document we're doing to the planet.  

Here is where I go back to my original point . . .  what won't we do to stay alive?  Are we not willing to afford our only home the same care?   The nearest confirmed potentially inhabitable planet is 13 light years away.  Who's going to hop over there to confirm whether it really is inhabitable? 

My next point is . . . what does it cost to take care of our world?  Does it hurt us to do simple everyday things to contribute to Earth's life as opposed to contributing to its demise? Logic, mathematics and computer algorithms can easily demonstrate that a great number of people doing or refraining from doing very simple, daily, low or no cost activities can make tremendous differences in the life of our Earth and the quality of life for those of us living here.