Introduction

For the last two hundred years or so, we have very slowly been committing collective suicide. We have been doing it by changing the chemical composition of the planet’s biosphere, the part of the planet that makes it the Earth - as the place for life to be. The chemicals we are releasing, both man-made and natural, are poisoning, sickening and mutating living things and making a hospitable and generally benign biosphere, turn inhospitable, hostile and un-supportive of  life. Because the effects of these chemicals have a time delay in building to their critical mass, the majority of the deaths will be occurring in the future. Which means we are committing a kind of proxy suicide on behalf of the generations to come. Which is to say, on behalf our children and their children. Or, with a small change in perspective, you are killing, if not murdering, your own children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Since we are not alone on the planet, this also applies to all the animals and birds and reptiles and insects and so on which live alongside us. And this makes us all killers on a grand scale.

We are now at the beginning of the end stage. The changes to the chemical structure of the biosphere are becoming great enough for large scale deaths to begin to be more apparent. Apparent, because large scale deaths are already with us, caused by existing hydrocarbon poisoning. But because the deaths are dispersed across the global population, they are neither obvious nor easily seen.

By all rights this should have us all doing everything we can to reverse or at least halt this terrible tragedy. Because we can bring it to a halt and reduce the consequences by doing everything possible to stop the use of hydrocarbons now. From that point we can plan for the coming hardships and try to make our retreat into the future with as little suffering as possible. The alternative to this is unimaginable suffering and deprivation. At this point in time we are following just this route, which is to say we are doing nothing. 

In response to this, even the least inquisitive and the most closed-off amongst us, must be asking why nothing is being done. For those of you who are not asking, the time for ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, greed, blindness, apathy and whatever other excuse barring madness, that you may have for not confronting what is before your eyes, is over. Acknowledging the extreme consequences of what is happening to the biosphere is mandatory. If it were only your life at stake it wouldn’t matter. But there are many millions more of us than just you.

The only question that should matter to anyone now, is why we are not acting to save future life.