The college Baby Boomers attended Earth Day 1970 with great excitement that they could make a difference in the world. At the time, human overpopulation ranked highest on the list of concerns for the health of the planet.  

The Earth housed 3.5 billion human beings in 1970. Today, humanity boasts 8.1 billion human beings.  As humans add 83 million more babies, net gain, annually, the United Nations projects humans will reach 9.7 billion by 2050.  That's 1.6 billion more of us scarfing up water, energy and resources.  It also means our waste will multiply by 1.6 billion more of us.

Little known at the time, Dustin Hoffman had starred in the 1967 movie, The Graduate, where his mentor said, "You've got to get into plastics, son, that's the big item that's going to change the world."

Fifty-six years later Earth Day 2026, and we've got plastics piling up all over the world. They've overwhelmed our landfills, our lakes, our rivers, our highways, and our oceans. 

"Approximately 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastics, (about 30,000 tons, daily) are dumped into the world's oceans , river, lakes and along roadsides every day. This equates to roughly 19–23 million tons of plastic waste leaking into aquatic ecosystems annually, driven largely by 400 million metric tons of global plastic production each year."

Over 1,000 rivers are responsible for about 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean, according to research shared on Our World in Data.

Material Breakdown: Over 90% of plastic pollution in the ocean is reported to be microplastics.

    *   Accumulation: At least 200 million metric tons of plastic are estimated to be circulating in the world's oceans.

Special note: here in the United States, only seven states passed bills to mandate 10 cent deposit/return laws. That leave 43 states that don't give a damned about conservation, recycling or contaminating the air, land and water. 

Reported by NPR this past weekend, we have plastics breaking down in landfills, and in city trash collection, plus plastics are in everything we wear or use…so much so that we're breathing tiny microplastics into our lungs…which then circulate into our brains.

"Americans are inhaling thousands of microplastic particle daily, with estimated exposure ranging from tens of thousands up to 68,000–71,000 particles per day. These particles, often under, originate from indoor synthetic textiles, carpets, and car interiors, penetrating deep into lung tissue and contributing to potential long-term health risks."

Key Findings on Inhaled Microplastics:

Indoor Concentration: Air inside homes contains over 500 particles per cubic meter, while cars can have over 2,200, making indoor environments a primary source of exposure.
Sources: Common culprits include synthetic fabrics (polyester, nylon), household dust, cleaning products, tire wear, and carpet fibers.
Health Concerns: Studies indicate these particles can trigger immune reactions, reduce lung function, and have been associated with increased risks of stroke and diabetes.
Persistence: Microplastics are being found throughout the human body, including the lungs, liver, blood, and even the olfactory bulb in the brain.

Another sobering aspect of America stems from the fact that only 32 percent of households recycle plastic, paper, glass, metal cans and cardboard.  That leaves 68 percent of the American public that simply doesn't care about our resources, air pollution, and material reuse.

Along with the incredible disregard for our planet, humans have been killing 100,000,000 sharks annually since the 1980's.  You can look it up to verify. We are destroying the ecology of the oceans. 

At this point, since humans continue to encroach on animal habitat, we are causing "The Sixth Extinction" session that causes 150 species to be gone, daily, from this planet forever.  For instance, we've killed 60 percent of the elephants in Africa. We're bleaching hundreds if not thousands of reefs in the oceans from carbon dioxide being absorbed because humans burn 100,000,000 barrels of oil 24/7.

Within 60 years, we jumped America's population from 194 million in the 1960's, to our current 340 million in 2026.  But hold on to your seatbelt, because demographers project the USA to add another 74 million people by 2060 to reach 414,000,000 people.

Since we suffer 778,000 homeless in America today, what would it look like in 30 years with perhaps 2,000,000 (million) homeless?  Because you better appreciate that as our numbers grow by the millions, there is less and less chance we can solve any of our problems.

If you think our air pollution nightmares are bad today, think about what your children face in 30 years.

If you live in any big city like Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Baltimore, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and/or Portland—-you're breathing poison air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In my city of Denver, it's called, "The Brown Cloud" that hovers over the city 24/7.  It's filthy with chemicals and exhaust from 3.2 million people driving cars, living in homes that exhaust particles from heating and/or cooling. It never goes away! Worse, demographers calculate that Denver expects to add another 1,000,000 people by 2050.  Colorado expects to jump from 5.7 million to 8.7 million. The pollution will increase as our numbers accelerate. Oh, and driving a car in Denver is a nightmare of bumper-to-bumper traffic six days a week.  Interstate -70 and I-25 in the middle of Denver are referred to as "cement parking lots."

Then, think about the 43,000 different chemicals like Weed-B-Gone or Roundup being sprayed across the land by the millions of gallons. It all drains down into our ground water, and ultimately into our oceans.  In other words, we're poisoning the living hell out of ourselves. Look at all the people dying from lung cancers, liver disease, heart attacks, brain cancers and endless ailments.

Obviously, this report only touches the tip of the iceberg as to the farcical celebration of Earth Day.

So why do we celebrate Earth Day, when in fact, we really only pretend to care about this planet?

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money." — Cree Indian Proverb

"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed…if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence."  Wallace Stegner

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