Our lifestyle is making the planet unsustainable for our lifestyle. The planet revolts and destroys our bodies. Our bodies destroy our minds. Our minds destroy our world. The cycle is self-connecting, perpetual and vicious. It must be broken.
We dump dead diseased animals into rivers. The rotting flesh, organs full of parasites and bacteria ooze into the water.
Thirsty, we drink.
Dirty, we clean.
We consume useless products we don’t need, to impress the people we don’t like, only to throw them out or lose them within months. They leach toxic chemicals into the earth and rot for hundreds of years.
We abuse our soil, which lacks nutrients for the food we grow. The food, stunted, lacks ability to fight pests.
We spray pesticides.
We eat pesticides.
We are pests.
Corporations bound by law to profit exploit and cut corners in order to keep shareholders happy, while they spew pollution into our waters, our air and our land.
Hungry, we consume.
Blind, we demand more.
We cannot continue this any longer. To do so is bringing a slow, but certain total destruction to all life.
Enter Exhibit A: It began centuries ago, one example being the poor treatment of cows. Their raw milk turned deadly, leading to an epidemic of Tuberculosis. This led to pasteurization and ultra-pasteurization, which can cause further disease and allergies. This disrespect for nature continues today. We harm our planet and it harms us.
Enter Exhibit B: The disastrous BP owned Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The air, which is 100 times more toxic than normal due to oil dispersant chemicals is making the people of Louisiana cough, gag and unable to sleep. Symptoms just like those who lived near previous oil spills.
Government and local authorities at this time of writing have yet to provide health services. If the toxic dust after the Twin Towers fell in NYC is any indication, it will be years before the people of Louisiana see any relief, if they live long enough.
Enter Exhibit C: The Red River in Winnipeg, Canada, an area known to have the highest incidence of Crohn’s disease, a devastating inflammatory bowel disease. In 1997 I was diagnosed with it.
That’s me, having the time of my life tubing and wakeboarding on the Red River up in Winnipeg, Canada. I’m the one showing off to the camera, unknowingly ingesting bacteria that would work over my gut for the next 6 months. Then symptoms of diarrhea and gut pain were frequent. My friend warned me not to drink the water, which I didn’t think I had. It wasn’t until years later that I learned from her and a UK doctor that farmers liberally use the river as dumping grounds for waste and dead animals.
Don’t you see? The system is out of whack, out of sync, on the verge of collapse. What the planet needs, what WE need, is to unplug from Western society. Forgo consumption in place of contribution. Skip the rat race towards piles of monopoly money that only exist on Wall Street computers. Rediscover the value of things that cannot be valued; relationships and community.
When this disrespect of all things living ends, no longer will we have increasing rates of disease and decreasing rates of longevity.
UPDATE #1: Huffington Post has an article that is along the same lines as the above, posted on May 19th, but I didn’t see it until today, May 23rd.
© 2010, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.
Jesse Schell, author of the highly regarded The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses 
We now want real experiences, we want real change and to reconnect with nature. Partly why Avatar was so successful was because it reawakened a deeply muted and numbed core of the human experience, which is to be in tune with nature, life and your own body. Many are sick today because they aren’t awake; they don’t know what “real” feels like.
The question for us game designers as we move ahead to creating more reality infused game experiences is, are we going to create games that are leaderboards for how many calories players have consumed for McDonalds? Or are we going to create games that help people positively, to be more connected with nature, genuine and compassionate towards all life? Are we going to be creating generations of consumers, or generations of contributors? Which way will you contribute to the future of society?