We live in a time where guilt is both frequent and intense—especially within certain circles of ancestry, income, and inheritance.  Guilt has become so manifest that we are to feel remorse now when we consume other life.  I would request that you (please) take a moment with this thought.  As a heterotroph, humans must consume other beings (or portions of beings) in order to derive the calories and nutrition they need to survive.  They are like many thousands of other mammals—they can’t absorb energy from the sun directly but need to consume beings who can (autotrophic plants) or being who eat the beings who can (other heterotrophs).  Some of these other beings that humans consume feed primarily upon plants, some eat primarily other animals, and some a diverse mix.  And none of these heterotrophic beings feel guilt for consuming the foods their bodies are designed to ingest, digest, and excrete save for one:  humans.  It has become so habitual to feel guilt in this age of wokeness that we now even feel remorse for engaging in biologically necessary behavior.

There has been an explosion in the recent frequency of signs, memes, and social media posts about trusting science.   I find this exceptionally troubling given that they are being used to silence evidence-based research that undermines their belief about a particular topic—in this case, primarily COVID-19 information.  More to the point, most of the time “I trust science!” is being expressed it is being used in a way that is hardly separable from the logical fallacy called Appeal to Authority, where because someone possesses a credential, their words/writings are considered “truthful”, even if they can be shown to be based on biases, falsehoods, or unfounded beliefs.  Credentials do not, in and of themselves, make statements truthful.  It is the evidence upon which the statements are based that builds a solid explanation of a particular phenomenon.  But, nothing is ever conclusive (i.e., science does not build indisputable facts), and if you believe so, you are practicing a religion.  Further, there are other ways of explaining events than solely through the lens of the scientific method, but that is another topic for another time.

Many people are becoming aware that this industrial society has done terrible things to our earth mother.  And, to be clear, essentially all of us (myself included) have promoted environmental contamination with our purchasing and use of modern products.  This issue is highlighted in the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) phenomenon.  As this point, based on our desire for comfort and convenience, the rivers throughout much of the United States are contaminated with these endocrine-disrupting, cancer-causing, and long-lasting substances.  Please allow me to be a little more blunt than usual as forever chemicals necessitate it.  Because we don’t want to use effort to clean our cooking pans or fabrics or upholstery, the fish in many of our rivers are severely contaminated to the extent that a single meal translates to increased PFAS in the blood serum of humans (and any other organism that eats fish; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122024926?via%3Dihub).  Because we don’t want to get wet (i.e., be uncomfortable for any length of time), our clothing is now a major source of PFAS contamination that is making food that humans eat unsafe for consumption.  And, we could go on (such as packaging in the fast food industry).  Many of the significant sources of PFAS are based on our need for unprecedented comfort and convenience—they are not necessities.  Therefore, we have to contend with the fact that our population is so lazy and so fragile that we are filling up the soil, air, and water with chemicals that cause cancer in living beings.  That’s quite a privilege (one we never discuss)—the privilege to use completely unnecessary and harmful objects, devices, and coatings for the simple reason that they make life easier.  That is a freedom worth examining critically.