Yesterday, I suggested that our eco-socialist alderperson Austin King take a drive in the country and observe the real world. Driving across Wisconsin today, I decided that fairness required me to attempt to view the world through his eyes. What I witnessed first hand completely shocked and horrified me.
The landscape was drained of all color and large sections were mostly barren dirt except for the rotting stumps of long dead plants. The trees were without leaves and many showed horrible scars where past violence apparently ripped off limbs from the trunk. In places the once majestic trunks of old dead oaks were just lying on ground where humans had killed and discarded them. Even worse were the grassland ecosystems. Instead of the brilliant colors of native prairie flowers rising from the lush deep green hues of healthy plants, there was nothing but acre after acre where everything was dead, brown and matted down. The air was devoid of bees and butterfly's, and also deathly quiet since no crickets chirped or mosquitoes buzzed.
I did see a few birds now and then. Some were huddled together in small flocks looking scared and hopeless. Some were in solitary flight making a desperate search for any kind of nourishment. There was a dead raccoon and a dead squirrel, killed by the machines of man, and the only free living mammals I observed were two deer standing in field near French Creek on Highway D outside of Platteville. I wondered how much longer they could survive the intrusive human sprawl.
Tragically the only common animals left in the area were herds of oppressed cows on the omnipresent industrial factory farms. In some places, dozens of unfortunate bovines were crowed together in filthy mud filled enclosures, and in other places individual beings were forced into stalls so small the living creature could not even turn around. When the insects die, then the plants die, then the birds and animals go extinct in the wild as nature collapses, and all because humans have killed the ecology of the planet.
Maybe Austin King is correct and the world is in immediate danger of dying because of human greed. After all, how can I deny what I saw with my own eyes on Easter Sunday.
The landscape was drained of all color and large sections were mostly barren dirt except for the rotting stumps of long dead plants. The trees were without leaves and many showed horrible scars where past violence apparently ripped off limbs from the trunk. In places the once majestic trunks of old dead oaks were just lying on ground where humans had killed and discarded them. Even worse were the grassland ecosystems. Instead of the brilliant colors of native prairie flowers rising from the lush deep green hues of healthy plants, there was nothing but acre after acre where everything was dead, brown and matted down. The air was devoid of bees and butterfly's, and also deathly quiet since no crickets chirped or mosquitoes buzzed.
I did see a few birds now and then. Some were huddled together in small flocks looking scared and hopeless. Some were in solitary flight making a desperate search for any kind of nourishment. There was a dead raccoon and a dead squirrel, killed by the machines of man, and the only free living mammals I observed were two deer standing in field near French Creek on Highway D outside of Platteville. I wondered how much longer they could survive the intrusive human sprawl.
Tragically the only common animals left in the area were herds of oppressed cows on the omnipresent industrial factory farms. In some places, dozens of unfortunate bovines were crowed together in filthy mud filled enclosures, and in other places individual beings were forced into stalls so small the living creature could not even turn around. When the insects die, then the plants die, then the birds and animals go extinct in the wild as nature collapses, and all because humans have killed the ecology of the planet.
Maybe Austin King is correct and the world is in immediate danger of dying because of human greed. After all, how can I deny what I saw with my own eyes on Easter Sunday.
