Environmentalists miss the mark

1:23am October 13, 2007 I had a revelation. In the darkness of my living room I realized that all environmentalists alike have missed the real issue on climate change. I for one am not completely convinced that we are solely responsible for the current dilemma we face. Now that I have the full attention of every environmentally conscious reader, I would like to point out "Completely" as being the operative word here. My instincts, better judgment, and the overwhelming evidence lead me to believe that we are responsible for the current state of our environment, and I remain optimistic that it is not too late to reverse course on a path that will surely lead to our impending doom. Now, this is where I believe every expert, politician, environmentalist, and scholar has got it wrong on the issue. We are not hurting the planet, we are altering it. What is important about that statement is that that the Earth has been altered to every imaginable extreme, both before and during the presence of humans. The ice caps are melting, the ozone has a hole in it, temperatures are hotter, and sea levels are rising. These are all undeniable facts that are of no concern to me. What concerns me is that there are those that wish to focus the debate on how the Earth has been altered and how we are hurting this planet. Although it may take eons, the Earth will right itself after any stress we humans could possibly unleash upon it. It will also someday return to another ice age.This issue should never have been about the planet. We humans are a selfish species. The fact we have altered the balance of an entire planet is proof of that. It is only through the selfishness of mankind that a tangible solution to our fate may be exploited. The focus of this debate needs to shift from planet Earth, which nobody gives a damn about, to what started this SNAFU in the first place.....us. We are killing ourselves. The Earth will survive all of the alterations we force upon her. We will not. If the experts took that approach, maybe we'd give a damn.