Part Five - Death by Proxy

1490: 

Edited by CJ.Tointon

     

If Nature had a head to scratch, it would be scratching it pretty hard by now.  It seems that we humans just won't learn what it is that is dooming our species (and collaterally, all other species too).  Unfortunately, we're going to have to learn the hard way.

  

History tells us how, in the name of Western imperialism, we used force to steal the best resources from the most impoverished people, leaving them high and dry.  We've then looked back to see them violating each other in terrible ways, allowing us to accuse them of being barbarians.  We rip the Earth apart for resources such as fossil fuel and burn it into the atmosphere.   Another violence!  Over a period of time, global warming takes place, altering the delicate balance of the Earth's climate.  But we say, "It's too late to repair things and anyway, I'll be dead by the time things go belly up for the planet".  In truth, none of us are really that concerned.  We continue to burn and heat and force the climate to change at an ever more dangerous rate.

         

We least learn what we don't want to learn, forcing Nature to build the danger until we eventually tumble to what's happening.  At which time we rush for the first aid tin and grab a few sticking plasters to stem the bleeding, to stop the draining of life energy, to avoid panic.  At the eleventh hour we try to rectify things, if only for the short term.  And still we fail to realise that our conceited brains and precious free will are no use to us at all.

         

If we'd learnt our lesson sooner, none of this would have happened.  The animals wouldn't have been enslaved, the planet wouldn't have been trashed, and we wouldn't have been at each other's throats.  Violence (as if containing the seeds of plague) would have been avoided.  Instead, we'd have used our brains to build a sustainable system to the advantage of all life forms.

Nature has one clear message - life can only flourish when it is allowed to develop without being exploited or violated.  Human life will only make real progress when it admits to the part each individual plays in the practice of proxy violence.