Yesterday I expressed frustration that we (as informed citizens) are repeaters of information. I said that a tennis ball is thrown for us to hit back and forth. Today I want to continue on that and address what matters.

When a tennis ball like problem is thrown at us by politicians and the media we’re seized by it’s enormity and either dismiss it as being too big to conceive or tackle just it… and nothing else. I’m talking about global warming. Global Warming is one thing that plagues this world. It is an enormous tennis ball like problem that clearly gets racked around the circles of opinion and debate, but its magnitude is its problem.

What If I told you that Global Warming is just a blanket to cover the pressing problems of society that the rest of the industrialized world? Would you feel played? Perhaps so. One of the world’s most distinguished scientists, E.O. Wilson, a professor and honorary curator in entomology at Harvard. Who in 1975, he published Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a work that described social behavior, from ants to humans, warns us of the “THE HUMAN JUGGERNAUT” what he calls the HIPPO. It is an acronym for:

• Habitat Destruction
• Invasive Species
• Pollution
• Population Expansion
• Over Harvesting of Species

His premise is that it is not just one problem facing society, but five. The “HIPPO juggernaut” as he puts it will take out life much faster and much more destructively then just global warming on it’s own. His problem is that we are destroying life before we can even catalog it, explore it, or even acknowledge its existence around us. A couple of posts ago I spoke of it as the inevitable downside to DOW Chemical Companies’ Human Element. I was introduced to E.O.Wilson’s comments on HIPPO and the little things (insects) lecture by (appropriately) my biology teacher who forwarded the class a link to the TED Wish Awards.

Click here to see E.O.Wilson’s Speech

I think that E.O.Wilson’s idea of an Open Source Encyclopedia is a wonderful idea, but it begins with first tackling the hippo. From the documentaries and nature shows we’ve learned that Hippo’s are large and in charge and are more dangerous to humans then alligators. It’s taking over everything and leaving destruction in it’s wake.

“Whoa… Josh!” “Throttle back!” you just said global warming was huge, what does that make HIPPO? Answer: Super GINORMOUSLY HUGELY BIG BIG BIGGIE BIG. Yeah.. something of that size… “Uhh all I can do is buy an energy safe light bulb, is that good enough?” … Nope. Not good enough… “Well what can I do then?” answer: the solution is too complex for one people to solve on their own so we need to work together. To work together people need to be on the same page so my suggestion to combat the hippo is to just talk about it, broad cast it, blog it like I’m doing. By putting this on the minds of people, things will happen. Ten years ago people probably weren’t thinking of double or triple pane windows or energy safe light bulbs, but they are now.. So in addition to broadcasting the message we need to come together and make throwing a plastic straw on the ground a big deal, honk if see someone throw a Styrofoam cup out the window of their car, and other such acts. People who contribute to one or all of the HIPPO forfeit their individual rights to do so, because it’s now a public health matter.

To tie this all up we need know what is really important and dismiss what is not. Marginalizing real issues and debating tennis ball issues is not going to fix the mess we’ve made. I quoted the oracle last time who said, “make up your own damn mind” now I ask you to consider the facts of life, get informed, you’ll realize what you can do to help… do it.

I’ll leave you with a quote from a fortune cookie I got a long time ago..

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