I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the horrible things that are being done to the environment and to human society. It has occurred to me of late, however, that I have yet to really address the issue of: Who cares?
So why is all of this stuff a big deal? There are those who would say that it is only “natural” that humans destroy and subjugate the world around us because we have risen to the top of the food chain. We have made technology our adaptation and it has far outstripped the claws, wings, and teeth of all other creatures on earth. Perhaps this is true; certainly the evidence exists to support such a stance. I, however, would call this a perfect example of a “might makes right” sort of mindset which is an integral part of the problems facing this world.
This world: What does that mean in this day and age? Am I talking about the whales? The trees? No, I mean the whole enchilada. Why the whole enchilada? Because that’s all that there is—that’s why. There is no separation between tree, bird, and man. We are all connected. I hate to move into a Lion King kind of literary tone here, but it happens to be the truth.
People constantly harass environmentalists as tree huggers and idiots because they think that we have no notion of reality. I always find humor in this. Many believe that 65 million years ago, a giant meteor wiped out the ruling aristocracy of the food chain—the dinosaurs. So, does this mean that the big rock split into a bunch of small rocks and that each rock targeted a dinosaur and killed it? No, of course not. They don’t make rocks that precise, even now.
Instead, the meteorite likely kicked up sufficient ash to block out the sun for a long period of time, in addition to blasting the landscape into oblivion. So, did the ash kill the dinosaurs then? Not likely. The point I am getting at is that we, like the dinosaurs, are at the top of our food chain. Being at the top, however, does not necessitate being separate from that chain. If all of the phytoplankton in the ocean were to die off due to some brilliant chemical dumping that we did, we would all very likely die. What of all of our guns and computers then? We still have to breathe, eat, and drink. It’s nature’s little system of checks and balances—and our account is nearing bankruptcy.
Every day, as we go about our business, thousands of species are wiped from the planet. Poof! They’re gone. No second chances—just gone. To put some perspective on this, humans have been called the most severe source of biodiversity loss in the last 65 million years! Who knows whether one day we will wake up and realize that the day before we bulldozed the cure for the common cold into extinction?
If you are too selfish to care about something like the preservation of plant and animal life, or the health of planetary ecosystems, surely you can at least comprehend this simple fact: If we kill the planet we will die too. I, for one, am not going to die without a fight.
