The time has come for us to choose to bring ourselves back to a time where we are at one with our environment and willing to sacrifice in order to ensure a future for our country, as well as our planet. As Jared Diamond, noted professor of geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize winner for Guns, Germs, and Steel, shows us quite simply in his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, we are going to need to make a decision here.

We need to look at what happens when we squander our natural resources and ignore the signals our environment gives us. We need to look at why some civilizations such as the Mayas, the Polynesians of Easter Island and the Vikings in Greenland disappeared off the face of the earth while other civilizations prospered: factors including ecological care, withstanding pressure from enemies, slowing population growth and taking care when choosing trade partners. He often extrapolates, but there is clarity in one thing, especially in the face of the tragedy that was Katrina and her aftermath: we need to make choices now.

My hope is that from this tragedy we will learn that we need to wake up and choose our government more carefully, and then keep an eye on it. I hope that, if nothing else, we will start looking at this earth we are on and what we can do to make sure that our civilization does not disappear due to sheer apathy and laziness.

Shall we choose to believe the pundits such as Mihkel M. Mathiesen in Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate: How Truth Became Controversial , or do we believe the people not funded by Exxon like John Houghton Global Warming : The Complete Briefing ?

I think the way is pretty clear.

Don't you?