I fear for the future. The planet upon which we live is exquisite, and perhaps unique in all of the vast universe. But are we doing enough to keep it that way?

We all desire for our children and their children to have a safe place to live, with clean air and potable water. But as a society, we seem to be inexplicably mellow, or even reluctant, when it comes to taking the necessary — and in some cases, difficult — steps to make sure that happens.

There may be some merit to the argument that, through the ages, there have been cycles to changes in the climate. But it can also be argued that, since the Industrial Age, we have been spewing more and more pollutants into the atmosphere and pouring large quantities of toxic chemicals into our streams, rivers, and oceans.

This difference in perspectives has caused significant political tension between those who see changes in our climate as being part of a natural cyclical process and those who believe that the activities of humans has both exacerbated and accelerated what could be irreversible changes to our climate.

I don’t know who is right, but it seems to me that we are witnessing weather events that are stronger and more devastating and more frequent than we have had in decades, if not centuries. We are seeing global temperatures rising at an alarming rate. There are warnings that if the world’s temperatures continue to rise at this pace, the planet may, within a few generations, become inhospitable to many forms of life, including human beings.

To sit back and do nothing, and to potentially put human life in jeopardy, when there are steps we can take to try to address the problem of climate change is, to me, an abomination.*

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Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (exquisite), The Daily Spur (desire), My Vivid Blog (mellow), Your Daily Word Prompt (merit), Fandango’s One Word Challenge (tension), Word of the Day Challenge (generation), and E.M’s Random Word Prompt (abomination).

*Okay, “an abomination” may be too strong a way of putting it, but “abomination” is one of today’s daily prompt words. Otherwise, “irresponsible” would be a better choice.