Earth Day, here on Earth

What a great way to spend Earth Day – Cycling high up in the mountains of Guatemala, looking down on the clouds, farms and pine forest, listening to some reggae music on my 100% solar powered sound system. It would have been perfect were it not for two things: Jesus and Petroleum.

Today is a great opportunity to get those two concepts out of our collective consciousness. Let us forget about Jesus and Petroleum and live life like they never existed – the world needs this now more than ever. Today I was punished all day by mini buses, trucks and those big, colorful buses with giant colorful stickers proclaiming things like: Jesus Blesses You, Follow me to Jesus, or God Loves You while they blow thick clouds of acrid black smoke in my face as I try to climb to around 10,000 ft. on my bicycle. There is no smog check in Guatemala.

We are creating a serious earth crisis with our abuse of petroleum, people – putting immense amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, contaminating fresh water sources and oceans, littering the earth with plastic while causing various heath problems and provoking cancer in many humans and other animals. Choking cyclists is just another consequence of this demented abuse of natural resources.

What do I hear when I tell people about why I’m traveling this way? When I explain the problems associated with global warming and petroleum use? They usually agree that there is a problem and it looks bleak, but that is all preordained in the bible. It will all come to an end when Jesus returns and the faithful are sent off to paradise – no problem. Shit. I can’t have rational conversations with that type of person. Everyone is so blinded by the evangelical preaching that is happening everywhere in this country and around the world (Yes, especially in the US of A with their Huston Astrodome Sermons and Televangelism). Here there are more churches than grocery stores and you hear amplified preaching at every turn. Some people even drive their S.U.V.s around with loudspeakers strapped to their roofs, preaching their lies at high volume.

Look: We cannot continue to abuse the Earth and do whatever the preachers say to make us feel better about ourselves while we continue to lay waste to this most beautiful sphere of life where we find ourselves. Invading the middle east to help hasten the return of the messiah is not going to help save the planet for our children’s children’s children. I don’t care what Pat Robertson says – he’s got it wrong. All of those preachers and marketing professionals and other loud mouths that promise future salvation or rewards for obedience and suffering now need to get off this planet. We don’t need you. We have serious problems to deal with if we want to prevent a grim future for the inhabitants of this planet and its precious atmosphere. What we need is to start to work together to invent new ways of living that don’t involve Jesus or Petroleum. We will need to look back to the past for many things, but also toward the future, to design a new culture that is carbon neutral, free of carcinogens, full of life and free from oppression of any type. We should get some chickens, donkeys, windmills and solar panels. Plant some corn by foot and hand. Ride a bicycle to the organic farmers market, then cook up yer grub in a solar oven. Then share that food with your neighbors while you discuss how to improve your community. There are so many things we could be doing instead of driving our trucks to the 7/11 then going to church to hear about how good it will be when you die, as long as you suffer while you live.