A Few Green Thoughts

Recent centuries have seen remarkable events occur on this third rock from the sun, events which superficially center around our species and which have left the Earth organism severely out of balance. Really, I can't think of a better analogy for this than that of disease. This way of seeing things highlights two great truths:

1.) The world eco-system has always been almost as closely inter-linked as a single human body. The particularly human experience of being greatly separate from surrounding life-forms and even from the wind and dirt is a painful symptom of the modern disease.

2.) As in the case of a disease, there is no cosmic good or evil involved. The struggle is primarily one of order and disorder, of the forces of health against the forces of infection. This isn't to say that people haven't committed immoral actions leading to the disease or even that there shouldn't be retribution for these actions.

Now what is the direct cause of the suffering of mother earth, or Gaiia? For centuries now, our species has been expanding our habitat virtually without regard for the lives of Earth's other plants and animals. "We, which in this essay is used in the species wide sense of the word, use fuel and steel for vacations. We cultivate grain and then strip it of its nutrients and eat it in products like white-bread. We clear vital jungles full of resourceful creatures and use the land to raise sugar, which we eat practically straight in the vile forms of ice-cream and candy. We, and I, mis-use resources and bog down our higher faculties by drinking too much alcohol. We live on diets needlessly high in resource consuming meat¦ and often we process this meat so it's good for nothing more than nurturing obesity.

Now, this lavish and destructive behavior is approaching a crisis point. I'm no expert on the chemistry of global warming but I do read what experts have to say and it's become crystal clear that our technological activity has greatly affected the chemical composition of the ozone layer. The effects of this can be seen in the melting of glaciers worldwide and even of Greenland, as a new scientific study shows. Other nasty effects include increased rainfall, leading to flooding, and decreased snowfall, which is needed for irrigation, etc.

Given how menacing this phenomenon is, the failure of so many world leaders to take strident action is an indictment not only of their benevolence but of their intelligence. Indeed, global warming is not the only environmental time-bomb the powers that be seem blind to. There's over-population, acid rain, the holes in the ozone layer, and nuclear waste for dessert. If anywhere in the world there's someone with a good idea of how this vast and bizzare scenario will play out, it isn't me. But it wouldn't be shocking if, after a lot more pollution and a few major disasters, mankind got its act together and saved itself.

This wouldn't be okay. Mankind has a moral duty to stop destroying the countless other plants and animals with which we share planet Earth. Humans have already caused the utter extinction of a number of creatures ranging from the Wooly Mammoth to the Japanese Tiger to Homo Floresensies, the tiny human-like creatures of Flores Island off on Indonesia. For the sake of preserving credibility, I should say that in the last case this is only an educated supposition.

In vastly more cases, like the surviving sea-tortoises, the buffalo, and all the great apes, we've in one way or another so decreased a species' population that it is in danger of extinction and even if it recovers, its genetic diversity will be greatly damaged.

Sadly, some of these genocides have not even been committed for practical purposes like farming land or meat but for some repulsive vanity like the ivory trinkets for which countless elephants, gentle and playful animals, have been killed. African Grey parrots, the most intelligent of all bird species by human standards, were lucky to survive over-hunting for their red tail feathers. Then motor-boats are the top killers of the peaceful sea cow, or manatee.

And even aside from the beauty and value of these creatures per se, we never know what species will prove to be vital to man's efforts to create and sustain eco-systems on far off planets.

As any thoughtful person can see, human activity has changed the world forever. Mastadons will never again wander over America; The tiger will never again rule the jungle. Nor are humans likely to give electricity back to the eels and the air back to the birds. Much of this change is for the worse. Instead of ever stampeding toward more powerful technologies, humans should have moved forward over eons, never out of hearing of nature's drumbeat, slowly learning the difficult dance of being both humane and civilized.

But our ancestors made other decisions and now the whole world is suffering. Of course many people, safe behind country club walls or living in some still apparently pristine corner of the world, don't agree that the whole world is suffering. But whether one looks at the human population, chained to cubicles and pacified with legal drugs, or at the surviving wild-life, everywhere ensnared in the net of human interference, or at technology, creating un-natural life-forms and growing into tumorous mushroom clouds, it is true that the whole world is afflicted with the modern disease.

Still, faced with this fact, the environmentally enlightened should not become excessively angry or anxious. The bottom line is that we are here and have the opportunity to do what we can to help the earth regain its health. Excessive worry about how this effort will turn out will only cause suffering and distraction from our goals.

Besides, disease is only the flip-side of health; this is all only part of ebb and flow of the universal tide. Everything from the dinosaurs to Ghandi to Hiroshima to the tiny ants you may have seen today; They're all true and all subject to any greater truth there might be. This realization is beautiful and can give environmentalists the courage to take positive action when it seems that the very sky is falling.

Actually, there is a compensatory gift to being environmentally enlightened in a society still ruled by ignorance and greed. Faced with the enormous problem of preserving life, one sees one's own egotistical delusions for what they truly are. The distractions are many: racial and religious prejudice, the desire for physical luxury, the scientific impulse to categorize and control, the hatred that can arise from mis-understood morality, etc., etc. She who truly wants to save the earth should strive to purify herself of all of these things. I assure the reader that I am incredibly far from this goal.

In closing, I would like to give you some perspective on why I chose to write this essay and make it public. The primary reason is that I believe what I've said and feel the desire to persuade others of the precarious situation of our own species¦ and also that the slaughter of earth's other creatures is a great sin. I did not write this because I am a great environmentalist or have a superior understanding of the earth's plight. No, I merely have a small way with the written word and not much else to offer the environmental cause. Feel free to re-print this essay without permission.

I, and you so much more, will be blessed if this essay persuades you to take direct action in the defense of Mother Nature. If you are already taking direct action, maybe donating hard-earned money to the cause, or perhaps reading this from a perch high up on a redwood in Northern California, then may these humbly offered words steady your worthy hand.