Sounding the Alarm

Exclusive excerpt from The One Idea That Saves the World: A Call to Conscience and A Call to Action by Laurence Overmire.

The world is in peril, folks.

The house is on fire.

We are in the midst of social, political, spiritual, economic, and environmental upheaval. This should be readily apparent to anyone who is paying attention. Scientists and other concerned, knowledgeable citizens all over the world have been sounding the alarm for decades.

“The climate alarm’s been ringing for a long time. Since 1979, scores of scientists, environmentalists and diplomats have tried their best to wake people up to the issue. NASA climate scientist James Hansen outlined the ‘greenhouse effect’ causing the planet’s warming in 1988. The following year, David Suzuki referred to global warming as ‘a matter of survival.’ Maurice Strong, who organized the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio warned: ‘Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.’” ~ Raffi Cavoukian

There are a ton of articles, books, newspapers, magazines and documentary films out there that have been trying to inform us about what is happening.

If you are one of those who still doesn’t believe this is serious business, guess what? You’re one of the number 1’s! One of the deniers who still doesn’t see that the house is on fire! Merrily walking past the burning house without a clue. Don’t take it too hard. It’s not all your fault. You may have been duped like so many others, duped by the 6’s and 7’s who don’t have our best interests at heart, and who are taking advantage of our ignorance while increasing their wealth.

 “[There is a] well-funded campaign of junk science designed to mislead the public into believing there is a split in scientific opinion about climate change. For years, this misinformation campaign has been largely funded by the oil and coal industries, working under the guise of fake grassroots groups (‘astroturf groups’) and industry front groups with names designed to suggest that they represent the public interest.” ~ World Business Academy

The purpose of this book is not to try to convince you that our planet is in big trouble. You should know that already. There are many, many others who are documenting the evidence with far more scientific expertise and firsthand knowledge than I can bring to the table here.

Have you been paying attention?

Sir Martin Rees, England’s Astronomer Royal, says the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our civilization will survive to the year 2100. National Geographic reports that only 10 percent of all large fish—including tuna, swordfish, halibut and flounder—are left in the sea. The World Wildlife Fund laments that only 3,200 tigers remain in the wilds of Asia, compared to 100,000 just 100 years ago.

When 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and largely caused by human activity, shouldn’t we all be paying serious attention and doing everything we can to ameliorate the situation? It could take thousands and thousands of years for the planet to recover from the damage that’s already been done.

I write this in the year 2012, a year that many belief systems regard as transitional or transformational, even cataclysmic. Interestingly, science, tradition and myth seem to be converging.

Are we really facing some kind of doomsday scenario in the years ahead?

No one can say for sure, but even if we are not cognizant of all of the relevant data and scientific evidence, common sense tells us that we cannot continue to overpopulate the Earth, deplete the world’s resources, extract all the oil, destroy the forests, pollute the air and the water, poison our soil and our food supply without finally making the planet, at some not so distant point in the future, virtually uninhabitable for human beings and other species.

We are faced with the very real possibility that human civilization, as we now know it, is in danger of collapsing altogether. Is it a foregone conclusion? Of course not.

We have to believe we can prevent the worst. And we will if we are wise and take the necessary steps to avert disaster.

But I’m not one of those who is going to sugarcoat the truth.

The path we are on right now is the path of self-destruction.

This, then, is a call for wisdom. It is a call for immediate personal action on the part of each one of us.

Time is of the essence. We must begin to look out for one another.

We must think about the welfare of our children and the generations to follow. We have to grab a bucket, get in line with all of our neighbors, no matter what their race, their religion, or their political ideology, and put out the fire!

More excerpts from “The One Idea that Saves the World”:

Seven Types of People: Which One Are You?

This is a Call to Conscience.

Laurence Overmire has had a multi-faceted career as poet, author, actor, director, educator, and genealogist. As an actor, he has appeared on stage, film and television, most notably on Broadway in Amadeus, as well as the network soap operas, All My Children and Loving. His award-winning poetry has been widely published in hundreds of journals, magazines and anthologies worldwide. Known to many for his weekly segments as poet-in-residence on The Jeff Farias Show, Overmire is an advocate for peace, justice, human and animal rights, and the environment. Want to help fight the fire? Join the Bucket Brigade at:  www.TheOneIdeaThatSavesTheWorld.com and on Facebook

Editor: Elysha Anderson

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