There must be twenty ways to kill our planet

Art by David Kiphuth

 

Buy cars of many colors,

Drive back and forth at top speed.

Farm cattle in giant feedlots

All over the world.

Feed them crap that makes them burp

Until the atmosphere fills up with methane.

Keep burning oil

And drill for it in pristine places out of sight out of mind,

And off shore were nobody can see the rigs

From their beach houses.

Overfish the sea.

Blame other countries

For not doing their part.

Heat up the atmosphere and the sea

As fast as possible

Pushing back doomsday deadlines.

Fight endless wars

To distract the public

From what is really coming down.

Enlist younger and younger people

To run the army.

Make it fun for them like a computer game.

Come up with cool ways to adapt

To the end-game

Like selling junk that is supposedly recyclable.

Make plastic boards

To build boardwalks and picnic tables.

Build cars that run on batteries

That use lithium carbonate, manganese, nickel and cobalt.

Make people feel smart for buying electric cars.

Encourage people to vent their anger

By engaging in giant meaningless symbolic ceremonies

Like football or ecstatically burning effigies

So they can return to work for another year without

Shooting everyone in the office.

Kickstart the space program

And make it into a race

To see who can discover life in space first

While life on Earth continues to disappear.

Keep projecting everything fearful and negative

On foreigners and minorities

So the human race never pulls together

To accomplish anything epic.

Keep encouraging consumption

And never conservation.

Keep making plastic.

Keep focusing on fighting fires

Instead of solving the problems that cause fires.

Don’t require courses on sustainable living

And environmental science in schools.

Don’t pay any attention to how

More money is spent on redundant weapons systems

Than on food, education and health.

Keep dumbing down the media

So they don’t focus on the real story

Which is that we have completely mastered

Killing our planet.