I'd like to share something from my environmental science class that was, at that brief time and setting, vaguely amusing... but in the long term (or the short term, the way man is going) is sad, depressing, rather frightening, and angers me more than I can say.

Only a short time ago, a research vessel called the Odyssey went out in the Pacific in order to track and document a mammal about which little is known - the blue whale. A group of them was followed using underwater hydrophones, monitoring the whales' calls. Yet at one point, a day and a half out to sea, the ship lost contact with the animals, and they pulled up one of the hydrophones in order to find out what had gone wrong. The problem, you ask? The hydrophone had become ensnared with a plastic shopping bag. And roughly every twenty minutes, this scenario was repeated. And I ask you, with barely controlled fury - What the (insert expletive here) was a plastic bag doing out in the middle of our largest ocean??!! The epilogue to this little tale? By the time the Odyssey returned to port, and by combining reports from other vessels world-wide, they estimated that at least ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND plastic shopping bags are enjoying luxury cruises in our planet's waters.

And so, my teacher asked us, what do we want our planet to be like for our children? Do we want to put on their UV ray protection suits and respirators, and take a little stroll through the smoggy dark air lit by lamps in what used to be broad daylight, down to the museum, where we'll point and tell them, "See those? Those are birds; we used to have them around here."?

If you care about the environment, and if you want to stop what mankind is doing to the fragile natural balance of this, the only Earth we have, please spread this message to friends, family, and acquaintances.

Care for our Earth, and it will care for us.

Credit to Setep-Ka-Tawy.