Bad Houseguests
There has been a lot of discussion lately about environmental issues. Are we speeding up our ultimate extinction or are we too small and insignificant to matter?
What if we are nothing more than an infestation to this planet earth? What if the world sees us as nothing more than a cancer, an Aids; infecting and threatening its very existence? Is it possible that the floods, volcanoes and tidal waves are nothing more than the planet’s attempt to vomit and purge its ecosystem of the disease that is humanity.
It is hard to disagree with the fact that we are a cancer to this place we call home. We grow and spread through every aspect of her being, destroying everything we touch. We burrow into her guts, mining her essential ores, draining her life’s blood. We tear at her skin; digging and redefining what was already perfect. We mar her beauty with this unsolicited makeover, plowing through forests, redirecting waterways and covering her epidermis with manmade blemishes.
Like rodents or termites, we cavalierly run rampant over our own habitat with the small-minded conviction that there will always be enough. But will there?
Mother earth is sick. She has a fever, an infection, and it’s serious. Seventy degrees in New England in early January; she is sweating her polar ice caps away. Is the next stage the big chill, or will the fever just continue, unabated?
We blindly look on, refusing to acknowledge our part in all of this. We naively continue on our path of destruction, unremorseful and uncompromising. We want what we want, when we want it. End of story.
Maybe this is where the story ends. Technological advances and financial prosperity will not stave off the inevitable. We have wreaked more havoc than even we could have imagined. Changes that we had not anticipated for several generations are upon us. Yet we still refuse to waiver from our path of destruction.
We may want to blame this on the large conglomerates, the oil magnates, the big developers, but we are all complicit. Every time we throw away an aluminum can, leave a light on or drive around the corner, we are sealing our own fate.
Every time we choose fossil fuels over wind or sun, because it is more convenient, we put another nail in our own coffin.
When will we realize that our affluence won’t save us? We will not be able to heat our homes with gold ingots or drink diamond dust, and we certainly will not be able to stave off the floodwaters with our stacks of dollar bills.
We have failed to shift our priorities on our own. Mother Nature may now do it for us. We cannot blame her for fighting back. We drew first blood.
We have made our bed, dug our own grave, poked the bear; now we must suffer the consequences.
And still, we continue, making our mistakes and living our lives; oblivious to the destiny that may be waiting right around the corner.
Check out my website; http://furrytails.mysite.com/index.html