One Missed Call: Katrina

At this point last year, I was home from school and about to head over to a friends house to watch the coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I had been watching its movements all day. Mostly because I knew that thousands of people were unprepared for this storm. I also knew that what was left of it was heading my way in Oxford, MS. Well the last part of that didn't really go the way I thought. However, as we have all seen, I was dead-on with the first thought. And to this day, people are still not prepared for the future Katrina's or their cause. In a way, Katrina was a wake-up call that a lot of people missed or didn't answer.
Last night I have the pleasure of seeing An Inconvenient Truth. Of course I have studied global warming for years. I knew the facts. It was just good to hear someone talk about them intelligently in a huge forum like a film creates. Al Gore's work on this issue is just amazing. And while the film was too short, in my opinion, I think it still got the point across. And that point is that global warming is NOT an myth, it is a real problem with real consequences for all of us. And it wasn't a bunch of doom-saying and death. There were presented real solutions that all of us can do with technology that is available now.
If we learn anything from Katrina today, we should learn that we need to take our heads out of our asses and wake up. Global warming was not made up by scientist to scare children. It is not a political ploy by liberals to make everyone drive hybrid cars. It is a problem that we made with our lives of excess and greed. And that goes for all of us. Because if we sit back and say, "Well I did my part, it is time for everyone else to do something," the next time a Cat. 5 hurricane floods your city, don't come crying to me.
When I saw that storm in the Gulf last year I marveled at it. I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in nature. I thought, the Earth is a beautiful and deadly place. And we are slowly killing it. One of the points of the movie is that many people (politicians mostly) have created this fight between civilization and the Earth. I'm sorry, but the Earth wins. Can't defeat the Earth. No, the Earth will always kick your ass. Katrina is proof of that.
If the wake-up call of Katrina goes unheard, I fear that many more deaths will follow. If we can't do something to save this planet for our children and grandchildren, then we don't deserve to have any. If we sit idlely by and do nothing about global warming, we all deserve to die. I serious. We caused the mess and we have to clean it up. People are so damn greedy they don't want to make any sacrifices. Even if it means they will prevent things like Katrina from happening so frequently. But maybe that mindset is our downfall. Maybe natural selection has us in the cross-hairs because of our ignorance. If so, there is not much we can do about it now. If people refuse to head the call of Katrina, then the human race is doomed.