The World.

It's a small planet, this so-called Earth.  At least, it has a small amount of land.  It also has an extremely large amount of land-dwelling organisms.  This is quite the conundrum, seeing as that number of organisms increases by the second.  One fascinating race located on Earth goes by the name of homo sapiens sapiens, or perhaps humans for short.  This set of organisms defies nearly all the rules of nature.  A fellow who's feeling rather bold might even go so far as to say we are at war with nature.  Frankly, I'd agree.

By no means am I calling myself a tree-hugger, o-zone sympathizer, or anything of the sort.  I'm just as big a fan of wasting resources as I am a fan of making rainbows with a hose (it's like your own personal rainbow, right in your backyard!  Leprechauns sold seperately, of course).  But I digress, we humans as a race need to stop, drop, and roll on down to reality.  The planet is dieing.  Captain Planet and I had a long talk about this while lounging around in the Magma Tub.  He says people don't listen to the planeteers these days!  Can you believe it?!  So now I call out to you, the people that probably don't exist since noone reads this, to help the planet.  No, you don't have to kill yourself.  You don't have to stop using electricity.  You need to moderate.  Moderate how much stuff you buy (packaging).  Moderate how much food you eat.  Moderate how many times you go out of the house (or at least try to car pool).  With small steps like these, you'll get more and more used to a life with less....well....stuff in it.

That's America's problem.  We're all hell-bent on getting as much damn stuff as humanly possible.  More cars, more clothes, more food, more everything.  Don't believe me?  America accounts for 25% of the world's resource use.  However, we only make up 5% of the population.  That means each person in the U.S. is using up five times more than his share.  Think five times isn't a lot?  Consider what life would be like if you did everything only one fifth as much.  Your house is reduced to one room, with the air conditioning/heating only being able to change the temperature up to five degrees up or down.  You are only allowed ten minutes a day on the internet, and you go to bed when the sun goes down to conserve electricity.  You can only eat half a slice of pizza.  Your house's snacks are all but forgotten.  Your life is a living hell?  Well what I just described would still be about ten times better than people living in third world nations.  How do you think they feel, knowing that they have nothing to do with the issues of diminishing resources and global warming?  Do you think they take pride in the fact that they are unable to do anything to help, because they're not doing anything wrong to begin with?

Just some things to think about the next time you ask your mother to drive you all over New Jersey, or before you buy that pair of brand-name jeans.  How much do you think someone got paid to make those, anyway?  You think they make the same $7.15 an hour we get for working a register?  They're lucky to get $7 in a week, and they're actually working a job that requires skill.  Think about it.