Answering the burning question, What happens to all our crap?

The National Geographic channel has done it again - created a philosophically stimulating and visually entertaining program based on a completely pointless premise. Aftermath: Population Zero looks at a world where humans no longer exist. No explanation as to what happened to us - just poof, we're gone, and we left all our crap behind.

Without humans to build and fix things, the viewer watches civilization slowly disappear - plants and animals invade cities, buildings decay and collapse, monuments crumble.

The visual effects are cool - like when the Statue of Liberty loses her head. It is the ultimate disaster flick. But throughout the program I kept asking - "What's the point?" The only answer I could come up with is someone wanted to create a program that would make radical environmentalist squeal like giddy school girls.

The program seems to say, "Look how much better the Earth is now that humans are gone!" Humans are the scourge, the virus, and once we're gone Mother Nature slowly reclaims the Earth for her own by breaking down manmade materials and scrubbing the world clean.

When I was a kid, my parents told me to make sure and turn off the lights and don't waste water. Keep America Beautiful and Don't be a Litterbug were the slogans of the 1970s.

Later it became reduce, reuse, recycle. Okay - fine, I can do that.

But then things took a turn. Somewhere near the corner of "Lunacy" and "You've Got to be Kidding Me," Al Gore introduced us to the term "Carbon Footprint" and told us we all needed to know what size it is (I don't even know my bra size). Empty headed celebs recommend using only one square of toilet paper while other do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do-limo-lib elites tell us to change our lifestyles or buy carbon offsets. Sheesh....

But now with programs like Aftermath, we've reached the ulitmate and natural conclusion, the negation of the negation as it were. If we truly love the Earth, if we are truly environmentalists and say we put the planet first before our own destructive needs, we must make the ultimate sacrifice, a monumental coup de grace. We should all just off ourselves so Mother Nature can reclaim what is rightfully hers.

Eh? I don't think so.