Isn't it great, technology is everywhere? You name it and we are investigating it. We have split the atom, developed robots, computers, new space ships, bigger planes, hybrid cars and so many other things. We now can talk to people anywhere in the world as if they were right here and we can do this while walking down the street. Soon we will be traveling to the planets like we used to travel across the seas. Life is great isn't it, or not?

Smoke Stacks

With all this technology we seem to be bringing ourselves closer to the path of destruction. I don't want to sound like one of these dooms day people but look at what is happening to us. We split the atom and developed the bomb and it seems like it is only a question of time before it will be available to anyone with the bucks to buy one. This one invention alone could spell disaster for the human race. We have developed bio weapons and gas weapons that may be as powerful as a small nuclear device and if they can spread disease, they may even be far more deadly. Terrorists all over the world are salivating at the thought of possessing one of these weapons. This sort of reminds me of those horror movies from the 1960s where they showed you the world in ruin.

The problem is that it is not only the terror weapons that are dangerous, even the simplest of gadgets may possess unexpected risks. Look at all the warnings we have been getting lately on cell phones. Some scientists, the ones that don't work for the phone companies, claim that when you hold one of these babies up next to your ear, you are exposing the side of your face and your brain to radio waves and that they could cause problems. Will we have a generation of cell phone users that are developing different symptoms from their phones? I certainly hope that this isn't true.

Spray Cans

Automobiles are great aren't they? You can hop into one and go where ever you want. People have been doing this for over 100 years. But did you ever notice something strange, there is a pipe at the end of your car, its called an exhaust pipe, as I am sure you know? What comes out of this pipe? Deadly fumes come out and look where they are going, right into the same air that you breathe. Doesn't this seem to be a crazy thing to do? It isn't only cars dumping these fumes into our breathing air, it is also factories and machines. Huge smoke stacks all over the world are belching their toxic waste into the atmosphere. Sure some countries are making an attempt to filter these fumes but others could care less. Even the ones that filter them have laws in effect delaying the improvement of the efficiency of these filters because they feel it would add too much expense to the manufacturing of items making them less competitive.

Air travel is not much better. As the engines on planes get bigger and bigger they dump more and more garbage into the air. Sure the engines are getting more efficient and that helps, but our poor air is working harder and harder to stay clean. Some where along the line we, the geniuses that inhabit this planet, decided that we would cut down many of the trees that filter this air, increasing our problems. Global warming just might be the result of all this contamination. Why is the human race shooting itself in the foot like this? You would think that we would have gotten smarter as centuries progressed. We have gotten more technologically advanced, but we don't seem to have any regard for the place we live. Some where in the past we got off on the wrong foot. We just didn't think ecology when we should have. Maybe we could have reached the same degree of technology taking a different path, one that respected the planet?

We are making more species extinct than ever before. It is a funny thing with animal, fish and insect species, you may think that a species is a pest and destroy it only to find out that it kept a far more dangerous species in check. An example of this is the wolf population. Ranchers out west shot all the wolves they saw. What happens when all the wolves are gone? You get too many deer and there isn't enough food to support them. They also spread diseases more easily such as Lime disease because of their increased numbers. They even begin to eat everything. Every creature seems to have a purpose, a purpose that we are not always aware of.

Cell Phone

The world has stated that it has a problem and some countries have made a treaty through the U.N. that is named the Kyoto Treaty. The U.S. refused to join in. The treaty limits the number of emissions into the atmosphere. At first glance it seems horrible that the U.S. didn't join, but further investigation shows that most of the nations that did join are not meeting the standards anyway. So now we have a question, was it better not to promise to meet certain emission standards or to promise and not meet the standards anyway? Both choices stink as far as I am concerned because neither one helps the earth.

Unfortunately we can not un invent the nuclear weapon or other weapons of mass destruction, but must we keep improving them? If this keeps up maybe someday someone will be able to carry a nuclear weapon the size of a wallet in his pocket. How does this help anyone? We can try and improve our consumer devices and some of this is going on now. Hybrid cars are not the answer however. We have to look at the bigger picture. Manufacturing batteries also pollutes. Hydrogen created from water seems to be the answer for the clean car. The exhaust pipe would still be there but only water would come out. As far as cell phones go, maybe some sort of shielding could be applied to prevent waves from being sucked up by humans.

I certainly don't have all the answers or even all the questions, but I can see that the path we are on could be the path that leads us to a very unpleasant future.