Age of Stupid

I just got back from my latest business trip to the States. Every time I go I always feel extremely guilty for the flights and know that my carbon impact has just ballooned beyond all reason. Since I started my position I have always returned and purchased half an acre of rainforest as a way of mitigating my impact, but I know this isn't enough.

This past trip has just reinforced my continual hopelessness of how the world will continue. How can things proceed when there are people with flying so ingrained into their lives that they will actually commute on a short haul flight to get to the office. I am not sure if they know exactly what they are doing, but it is disgusting either way. It is becoming repulsive for me to even think that people will get on an aeroplane for a holiday... to the point that I will now be looking for another position, that will in all likelihood be outside my field, simply because I no longer want to be responsible for these outrageous crimes against the planet. The first time that I even started thinking about air impacts on aviation, and my own responsibilities for it, was only in 2006, but it has solidified in my actions now to the point that I will not take a non-emergency flight... but even that may be too much.

Tonight I went to go see a new 'documentary' called "The Age of Stupid" (www.ageofstupid.net), a film that presents only facts, as accepted by 99% of scientists, and takes an interesting approach of showing a man in 2055 reviewing media archives, which are really documented tales of six people on six continents interspersed with small facts and media footage, from 2008 and asking why we knew what we know and did nothing to change course. The film was the premier and they showed it consecutively in like 65 locations around the UK and was endorsed by the Met Office as an accurate portrayal, as well as the UK Environment Minister for Energy and Climate. Finally we have a film that gets to the heart of everything... our species, while not the first to cause mass extinctions or harm the planet, is the first to consciously commit suicide by destroying our habitat for short term gains. It is more than an inconvenient truth, our species and the planet will not survive unless a massive change happens in the next six years... a massive change.