Are we too far gone to save?

Just attended the beautiful Ellerslie Flower Show at Hagley Park, here in Christchurch. Pictured here is a a mask from one of the competitions.

Near the exit from the Countdown food tent, I saw a lady putting a plastic cup into the recycle bin.

"Are you sure that's recyclable?" I asked. Asking the question was my first mistake. I'm not the recycling cop.

She said, "It doesn't matter. Mankind is already too far gone. We may as well use up what we've got and get it over with."

My second mistake was trying to reason with an irrational person. "Hang on, don't spoil it for the rest of us. Better to work to keep things going."

Then she got annoyed. "Have you got a car? Huh!? Do you own a car!?" But by then, I'd caught on. I clammed up, not wanting to say I drive a Prius, that I'd taken the bike to the garden show, and I've committed a huge part of my energy to finding solutions to environmental problems. Whatever I do, she would see hypocrisy in it.

The world environment is in bad shape, and it's our fault. The solution, though, is to pull together, and tell our government to pull the big levers required to make the big changes. Fatalism is an excuse for a tragically depressed person to act stupid. Hope calls forth creativity and hard work.