Tree – © John Neel
As responsible citizens and photographers, the most important subject we have right now is the environment. Without the environment, nothing else will matter. Life will cease to be. Even those who deny or are hiding their heads in the sand will be no longer.
The planet is rapidly becoming a broken machine. The Earth is a mechanism with the sole purpose of creating and sustaining life. Every bit of life we know lives within its sphere.
Over the past few centuries however, man has treated the earth without much regard for the environment that we need to live.
We are killing the very thing that made life possible.
We must stop what we’ve been doing to the oceans, the water supply, the natural resources of trees and food. We must stop the crazy stuff such as pollution, war and corporate ownership.
We have to stop putting money ahead of life. We need to stop the greedy and the powerful. Money is what is killing us all.
Money and ignorance are killing everything we love and everything we need to survive.
In terms of how well the earth is taking our abuse, we have been nearing a point of no return for some time already. Man has treated the earth with disrespect and ignored the environment that we need to live for way too long. We must stop dumping our waste into the oceans, the water supply, and other vital resources. We must stop taking away from the earth and begin to behave with responsibility.
We must stop the greed and ignorance that is killing all hope for a sustainable future. Money and power need to stand aside so that we can begin the process of returning the earth back to the machine that was sustaining all life until now.
Either we learn to give back, do with less and alter our behavior or we end up with nothing. Life will vanish. And that means that we vanish as well.
In the scheme of things, we are the ones responsible because we are the ones who have made it this way. Only with our most intelligent minds working on the tremendous problems we have created will we be able to do the job.
Used – © John Neel
We all need to realize that less is more.
Anything short of saving the environment should take a back seat until we can get the environment back to some semblance of its former condition. However, if we are all on the same page, those other details will likely fix themselves. They should do so by making us all more aware of our complete reliance on the earth for our existence.
We humans are ultimately accountable to ourselves, the well-being of our own future, as well as the world we might save for the young.
All that is needed is our common goal and our commitment to life over money.
As for you photographers and artists, what you show in your work just might be what we all need to see. To me, the first priority in my work is to do what I can to get the attention needed to see the truth – the reality of where we are living. Part of that truth is in the air, in the water and in the earth itself.
Ignorance of that truth is ignorance that we can’t ignore.
Focusing our lives and our work on the environment in which we live should be the first priority for Creative Citizens – Artists, Photographers, Writers and Musicians. IMHO It should be the first priority of everyone who wishes a future worth living.
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