I'm a Murderer

I'm a murderer because every day, I'm indirectly emitting toxic chemicals and greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and increasing the risk of cancer and causing other health hazards to billions of people on the Earth.

I'm a murderer because every time I purchase a book, I'm indirectly burning down rain forests and taking away habitable place from billions of other spices by creating demands for more papers. Look at how many books I have. 30? 50? How many trees did it take to make all those books? 5? 10? 100? Whatever number that is, does a single animal deserve to bring down so many trees and to take away homeland from millions if not billions of animals, insects, fish, and possibly humans and reduce the size of the biosphere and the diversity of life on the Earth?

I'm a murderer because every time I turn light on, I'm indirectly burning coal fuels and producing tons of toxic and/or greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, and producing radioactive waste that takes away habitable land from the future generations of almost all spices on the Earth, and increasing the risk of health hazards for them.

I'm a murderer because every time I shop at grocery stores, I'm unintentionally buying hundreds of containers, plastic wraps, plastic bugs, and paper bugs to indirectly increase the demand of oil, thereby damaging rivers all over the world, killing hundreds of millions of lives, depriving rights and capitals from many African nations and causing wars amongst them.

I'm a murderer because every time I buy clothes, I'm indirectly lowering wages and producing toxic waste in many developing countries, thereby reducing the health condition of billions of people. When I buy a 100jacketor50 shoes at some department store, how much of that is going to the person who actually made that jacket in China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, etc...? 10?5? Probably less. And all of that is contributing to the deprivation of education from youth and the poor health conditions for children in many developing countries, increasing the mortality rate.

I'm a murderer because ever time I purchase electronics, I'm indirectly producing tons of toxic waste, burning down forests and deteriorating hills and mountains to extract minerals, dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, producing tons of green house gas. And what am I doing with them? Playing video games, visiting facebook, reading message boards, reading online articles, etc... all to just kill my time and entertain myself. Do I really deserve that much of natural resources just to kill my time?

I'm a murderer if I owned a car because every time I drive a car, I produce greenhouse gas and increase the demand of oil, paved roads, parking lots, and so forth. And the manufacturing of car also would have produced toxic gas and waste, greenhouse gas, and deteriorated natural resources.

But I'm a helpless murderer. I don't know anyway to acquire technical knowledge without cutting down trees and/or producing tons of CO2's. I don't know how I'm supposed to live without convenience of light bulbs and all the utilities I have at home and work. My apartment doesn't even get natural sun light! And I don't know how to buy groceries without having to also obtain hundreds of plastic containers and bugs. How are grocery stores supposed to keep food fresh if they weren't allowed use containers? And I don't know where I can buy clothes that are made by people who are paid fair wages. And I don't know what I can do without electronics. I'm a Software Engineer, and I'm practically useless without computers and other electronic devices. And if I lived in a rural area, how am I supposed to live without a car?

How can we fix all these problems? All I can think of is to live like we did in stone age but nobody is going to do that. Maybe we can invest heavily on renewable energy and sustainable products while taxing heavily on other products. But what are we supposed to do with the existing cars, factories, power plants, and others? Are we going to dispose them? That sounds like terrible waste, and seems to make the situation even worse. But one thing is certain. "Rich" people, meaning people whose hourly wage is more than few dollars, are living comfortably on the sacrifices of billions of other people on the Earth. Capitalism is a new name for the slavery system of poor by rich and the elitist hierarchy that lets 1% of the population controls the rest to the finest detail like what kind of water they drink, what they eat, and even what they know or think. Of course, we also kill billions of animals and insects and deprive natural resources from the Earth at the same time just to "lighten up" night skies.

And you know what? It's not sustainable. It just isn't going to work. About 20 years ago, I was hopeful that politicians and scientists are going to work on this issue, and eventually resolve it without risking everyone's life, including of other spices and the entire biosphere on the Earth. But now I'm hopeless. The situation seems to be getting worse each decade. Developed countries aren't taking any actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and developing countries are increasing their emission levels at exponential rate and producing unprecedented amount of toxic waste.

But I just don't know what to do. What can I do to change this whole situation? Of course, I always try to buy products that claim to be sustainable or green but who knows if what they say is true. I always try not to buy things whenever possible but at the end of the day, I still buy lots of stuff. And I keep a lot of things in my apartment that I don't know how to dispose of
because I think they can be recycled but I don't know where to turn into. It's as if the entire society is designed to harm people and the Earth. So I'm a helpless murderer.