When I was a kid I would go outside and play and later ask my parents and doctors why I would cough and why my eyes, nose, throat, and lungs would burn and feel raw.

My parents and doctors would answer: it is air pollution from the burning of dirty fossil fuels that power our energy and transportation systems.

This is when I first learned what air pollution is – and how it impacts our health.

Then I would ask the adults this: if using these dirty fuels to run our society also harms our health – then why do we keep using these fuels?

They would answer with things like “It’s the smell of progress, the smell of money!” “It is just the way things are, accept it, move on, go outside, and play – oh, and stop thinking too much.”

WTF!

At the same time, I was spending around 1.5 hours a day riding to and from school on a school bus. The diesel exhaust was an everpresent aroma inside the bus. At the time I had no idea that I was inhaling concentrated toxic microscopic particulate matter originating from the combustion of the diesel fuel that powered the bus – and neither did all the other children. At the time, all I was concerned with while on the bus was staying away from all the toxic bullies I was trapped in the bus with – little did I know I was also inhaling toxic particles that were harming my health.

During this era my adoptive dad was also smoking himself to death. I said to him on many occasions – isn’t smoking just putting air pollution into your body? He said yes. He also said he knew that it was bad for his health, made him cough, poisoned and hurt his lungs, shortened his life, and cost our family loads of money. He often strongly told us kids to never ever do this terrible thing that he was doing all the time because it was harmful, dangerous, and expensive.

WTF! What was all this, all these conflicting signals? They were so very confusing to the mind of a child – and they are still confusing to the mind of an adult. (BTW: All this early exposure to air pollution during my developmental years later became allergies, asthma, and countless sinus infections.

Dad kept smoking and he died in his early 50s.

WTF! WHY?

I was dumbstruck by these apparent deep, dark, dirty problems that nobody seemed to want to change. They just kept up with the intentional, self-harming practices as if there were no tomorrow.

Again – WTF! WHY?

I then learned about all the anthropogenic pollution, global warming/climate change, the ozone hole, acid rain, species extinctions, desertification, sea level rise, etc, and the fact that all these things were tied to the uncontrolled rate at which our species was (and still is) burning fossil fuels.

During this time I also learned about addiction. I put 2 and 2 together and I realized that just as my dad had been addicted to tobacco and it had killed him, our society was addicted to fossil fuels and if we did not change – we were on the same path as my dad had been – a path that leads at best to misery and suffering and at worst – to our own extinction.

Yet again – WTF!

WTF was wrong with people???

Aren’t we Homo sapiens supposed to be the thinking apes???

If so, something is greatly wrong with our thinkers.

In middle school, high school, and later university, I learned that a great many everyday heroes were slowly and methodically working to end our toxic addiction to toxic fuels. They were inventing and putting into place new technologies and new laws that cleaned up our fuels, the atmosphere, and the waters and therefore our health and our shared futures.

Their efforts paid off and sometime in my early twenties my eyes, nose, and throat stopped burning and tingling when I would go outside in the summer – this was a direct result of the policies and technological advancements that limit and mitigate pollution from factories and power plants as well as require all fossil fuel-powered vehicles to have pollution reduction and control devices installed on their engines.

At the same time, others were inventing better energy sources based on renewable, non-polluting fuel sources that use the infinite clean energies of nature – the sun, wind, water, geothermal (and now even gravity energy) to make much cleaner energy that has far less of an impact on our health and shared future. A few years later others built modern vehicles powered by electricity – electricity that can be generated by the before-mentioned, domestically-sourced, energy-secure, renewable energy sources thereby starting the transition to a cleaner, more sustainable energy and transportation future.

Unfortunately for all of us there were and are powerful factions in government, religion, and the corporate sector teaming up and working together to spread Fear Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) about these new developments in a well-funded attempt to keep these technologies, innovations, and laws from being adopted by the masses. Why are they doing this? The answer is very simple – dirty money – and lots of it. These forces are more concerned with money than the future of all life on planet Earth. They are greedy, selfish humans whose only concern is the acquisition of as much wealth as possible at the expense of the environment and all the life it supports.

Today, and even with the greedy FUD manufacturing factions, I have even more hope for the future with renewable energy sources – especially rooftop solar – at prices, almost anyone can afford, fleets of quick, reliable electric vehicles hitting the roads, technological breakthroughs in clean energy happening almost daily, and so many great and forward-thinking people following the evidence and the science and making great and positive choices that will lead us into the future – all great reasons to continue forward and not just crawl into a hole somewhere and die.

This is why I follow the path of science and engineering – not narrow, self-serving politics, religions, and false prophets following only the profits.

This is why I let evidence, logic, and common sense be my guide to making the big decisions in my life.

This is why I am who I am.

This is why I fight for nature.

This is why I fight for the future.

This is why I teach.

Fight for change.

Be the change.

Do only good things.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to change, it’s not.” – The Lorax