Grab it while you can

925: 

You can’t blame humans for always exploiting an opportunity. We’ve developed our response to temptation over aeons, in order to gain advantage over the ‘lesser brains’ of animals. And this has made us the dominant species. In other ways we have exploited opportunities for our own benefit to the detriment of the planet (and ourselves in the long run). A current example - ‘fracking’, causing mini-earthquakes to explode the shale, deep beneath the earth’s surface, to extract gas. The immediate side effect is that the toxic chemicals use in this process, leach into the drinking water aquifers, poisoning the water supply for the people up above.

We humans have always celebrated the fact that we’re so smart, that we are clever enough in fact to exploit and disregard Nature. But we should know by now that we don’t get ‘owt for nowt’. We pay in the end.

 The great lesson for us, in learning how to use opportunities afforded to us by our big brains, is to know when to stop, when to pull back. But we don’t want to miss out.

Restraint is made difficult because if we don’t take advantage then others will, and to our own detriment. But it’s only restraint that will give us all a future. It’s at the heart of the trend to ‘go green’, and if we do go ‘green’ (read sensitive and aware), if we see the sense of that, then why not go fully green, by dropping the animal stuff in the diet?

Exploitation is dumb - taking trees, ‘taking’ rivers, taking any resource, including animals, helps to destroy the sustainable balance of Nature. And we may feel grateful for environmentalists who fight for sustainable systems. But unfortunately they can only ever achieve partial success, simply because too many environmentalists are still meat heads. The haven’t made the connection between their own fine principle (and it certainly is fine) and the principles espoused by vegans.

 All I’m saying here is that, just because animals seem to breed abundantly and seem so available, and seem so indefensible and cheap to ‘run’, there is no ethical or long-term economic reason to continue exploiting them.