Saturday, May 9, 2009

A Letter to my Non-Skydiving Friends



I think people that are skeptical about human impact on our environment should try skydiving. I used to jump in Sparta in Southern Illinois. It was close to the Baldwin coal fired electric plant. There was a brown line in the atmosphere you passed through on the way to altitude. I always felt better about breathing when we flew above it.

As you looked out over God’s country you couldn’t help but notice the quilt of man made terrain as for as the eye could see. There wasn’t an inch of property that wasn’t totally shaped by people.

When you think about space being only 62 miles up you get a sense of how thin our bubble of atmosphere is.

Of course the real problem is our population explosion. I know I sound like a broken record, but the planet’s population has tripled in my lifetime. Our planet can’t handle this kind of exponential growth.

There are consequences from our actions. Why do people deny it?

Photo is the ascent to our first Missouri POPs (Parachutists over Phorty) formation record in 2004. We beat it a year later. I’m hidden in the back on the left. Pic stolen from Goon Squad celebrity and Master of Ceremonies Calvin “Calmodee” Britt.

2 comments:

...Sharon said...

Just look horizontally down the street and see all the plastic bags trapped in trees; the litter’s getting as bad as it was in the 60's! And we don't need to jump out of a plane to see the dark stripes of air.

We do need to correct our careless and selfish ways.

So do you recycling now?

Anonymous said...

A little but I should do more. My point about skydiving is you can look to the horizon and nothing is wild or even left to exploit.