Environmental Questions
Posted By carlos on December 20, 2009
I do not consider myself an environmentalist at least not in the sense of a torch bearing gun-toting advocate. Nevertheless, not to perceive that we humans are detrimentally affecting the environment is blind stubbornness.
You need only look at the smoke stacks emitting their billows of thick chalk colored smoke. Drive down a freeway with your windows rolled down and gag from the fumes. Look at the millions of acres stripped naked of their natural growth like a boot camp haircut.
If you cannot give this observation any credibility, then you do not stop to smell the roses.
Is this affecting the melting of our glaciers and the warming of our poles? Scientists cannot agree.
I know that we are the masters of the earth. Masters charged with the command to subdue Mother Earth and to have dominion over it and its kingdom.
I do not think that command implies desecration. It implies responsibility. What ruler that plunders and rapes is respected by his subjects? Fear and force will triumph for only so long before revolution festers and overthrows.
You may argue that there is a difference. You may argue that a soul that rules over another in discord and malevolence is different from dominion over the inanimate.
Mother Earth has a soul. It may not be a soul defined by religion, but it has a soul, an essence. Look at Nature all around you. Can it be denied that Mother Earth lives? I think not.
Have we not become parasites that gnaw at the surface and devour the bowels of this living creature we call home? We need its resources to survive. Must we devour it to satisfy those needs? We take from the bowels of earth. What have we done to replace what we have removed?
A wise man saves a few kernels of corn to plant and grow food for another day.
I am for individual freedom and for our capitalistic way of life. But, with that freedom comes responsibility. How do we hold ourselves responsible without strangling individuality? Unfortunately, only binding treaties and more laws can stymie the plunder of our planet. We can’t do it on our own.
What do you think?
photo by mezuni@flickr
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