Sometimes I have to say what is on my mind and this is one of those times. Increasingly, we live in an era where the media is biased and it seems most people just read headlines to get their news. Despite the massive complexities of almost any topic you’d care to mention from inoculation to climate change, everyone feels as if they should hold an opinion and believes their opinion to be right. Debate has degraded to insult slinging in many parts of social media and indeed, the media in general. In my humble opinion, we are seeing the decline of humanity right now and its saddening to see when we had come so far in recent decades.
One area that increasingly concerns me is environmentalism. For me, looking after the environment is the same as keeping my room tidy – it is a personal responsibility. Today, I meet all kinds of people who hold the most bizarre and one-sided views of environmentalism I have heard – things like humanity is a virus and should be exterminated all the way through to an idea that forest fires, hurricanes, storms and so on are man-made disasters inflicted on the planet by said virus. I’m sorry but what on earth (no pun intended) are they thinking these people?
Mother nature has always been a two-sided thing and depending on what and where you are, you may disagree about which side is best. As a geologist, when Mother Earth or Nature is portrayed as some sort of helpless three-legged kitten left to starve by its (human) owners, I have to respond. We are talking here of Nature right? The inventor of Tyrannosaurus Rex, flesh eating bacteria, radiation, volcanic eruptions, brain eating amoebae and many more horrors. Mother Nature isn’t just the pretty forest or flowers, it truly is waterspouts, sharks, flying cockroaches, tidal waves and all of that too. And you know what? Mother Nature or Mother earth is capable of looking after herself thank you! All you need to do is look at the geological record. Millions, if not billions, of species made extinct – I mean what did the Trilobites do to anyone to deserve annihilation?
It seems to me that if you believe in the One Thing – if you believe everything is connected – then logically, when Mother Earth tires of us as a species, it will kill us mercilessly just like it has done to countless other species in the past and replace us with something hopefully better. It would also suggest that what mankind does, is often in line or accounted for by the planet. I can make and back up an argument that man saved the planet by emitting CO2 – I know many people have firm opinions on CO2 as they read about it on CNN or Facebook and at this point will think I’m on a rant again…. but think this through. Until the industrial revolution, CO2 levels were declining rapidly to the point at which plant life suffocates. Had it got there, this would now be a dead planet. A rock in space.
The last time CO2 reached such critical minimum levels, Mother Earth responded and boy – (or maybe Girl), did she respond. As CO2 levels approached minimum critical levels, huge volcanoes appeared and erupted spewing recycled CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere. While this event replenished atmospheric CO2, it killed off 80% of living things on the planet. One can imagine that the drop in CO2 meant that animals that used CO2 to grow shells struggled to live, plants died or struggled so it would be like a huge famine and then – massive explosive volcanic activity spewing noxious fumes and blocking out the light… This was some event and it was rapid – the exctinctions all occurred in the blink of an eye geologically speaking. This was Mother Earth at work – doing what She needed to do to keep it all going.
People talk about the planet as some sort of fairy godmother … all nice, lovely and kind. Wrong! Just like the Tree of Life, Geburah is also needed, wanted and required.
Back to those forest fires. Yes, it’s a catastrophe I do not deny that, but this is and always has been Mother Earth’s way of renewing. Massive forest fires are recorded throughout the geological record . They are not new, in fact, they are common and they are certainly not the result of us being here. They are natural, needed and wanted.
There is no crisis. There is no emergency.
In environmental campaigns we are asked to look after Mother Earth. Well of course, we should but honestly, I suspect we should rather ask Mother Earth to look after us. Mother Nature will do just fine and deal with us accordingly when it decides we are no longer useful. Be grateful you have life and existence on this planet.
Treat it well – don’t litter, don’t over consume things you do not need. But Mother Earth is bigger, more powerful and more intelligent than we are – indeed, we are just a small part of Mother Earth ourselves and we deserve the same respect the planet does so stop dissing humanity as in reality if you diss us, you diss the planet and the the powers that be.
My activities over the past few years and increasingly recently, have convinced me that the Earth is a living being. I have felt it’s heartbeat. I have worshipped the Goddess and had the response. My friends have been led to the most amazing things by birds. It sounds ridiculous, I do know that, but I also know it is true. What we have lost as a species, and eventually this will get us wiped out I suspect, is our spiritual connection to the Earth and the Goddess. The divine Feminine. We need to try to reconnect to this in all of its forms and to do that, we need to look, listen and observe. The whole time you are consuming those mind manipulating headlines and panicking in fear, you cannot begin to connect to our Mother. I suspect it’s deliberate but that’s another post.
