Thursday, May 8, 2014

216. An open letter to Mother Nature

My Open Letter to Mother Nature:

Dear Mother Nature,

It is with great respect that I wish you, our ecologic provider and creator of all that is life, a warm and kind Earth Day.

You have given us beauty and wonder, with your picturesque landscapes and hidden secrets. You have given us millions of beautiful species of plants and animals, each with their own story and extraordinary evolutionary survival that has led to their existence today. You have given us music, poetry and literature, seemingly as a way to describe our experiences on this planet.

You have given us a chance to view the planets and stars of the universe, so that we might appreciate our distinctiveness and ponder extraterrestrial existence.  You have given us the mountains and oceans to relish in their design and challenges, and to prove that the earth lives and moves. You have made abundant fresh water and clean air, enough for millions of species to drink and breathe.

You have given us natural resources to build civilizations and the ability to travel great distances to engage in your splendor. You have given us the sun to keep us warm and grow our food. You have designed the most elegant of species, such as the hummingbird, dolphin, polar bear and tulip. You have offered us fruits, vegetables and grains so that we may live long healthy lives. You have built waterfalls and canyons to display your charm, wisdom and peak our curiosity.

The world is a beautiful place; you have given us so much. Our actions beg your forgiveness.

We pollute the air and clutter the oceans based on financial costs rather than environmental impact. We are responsible for the extinction of some of your most extraordinary plants and animals, as we terrorize those who inhibit our progress or luxury. We kill animals for their skin, fur or tusks, sometimes taking it from them while they are still alive. We fight wars and engage in terrorism over land, wealth, ideology, religion and mythology.

We slash and burn rainforests, depleting precious diversity to feed overpopulation or for short term profit. We warm the climate knowing of potentially grave consequences and then turn the science into a political issue. We treat animals as sport or superstition killing them as a trophy or as a matter of ritual. We enslave populations to search for diamonds and force child labor to pick our cocoa to materialize love and occasion. We take herds of animals captive and inject them with hormones and antibiotics to grow our food faster and cheaper.

We have created poverty and famine to preserve free markets, governments, dictators or royalty. We build bombs that not only kill our enemies but also the innocent for miles. We discriminate against those who look or talk or believe a little different based on archaic biases and prejudices. We cram animals into factory farms to increase earnings without regards for disease, environmental impact, health or cruelty. We have become a “throw away” society, burying our refuse and complications for you to handle.

Mother Nature, for all of mankind, I offer my most sincere apology and respectfully ask for just a bit more time. We feel your unhappiness in the form of hurricanes, tornado and extreme temperatures. We recognize that the cruelty that we eat is making us sick and unhealthy. We mourn the avoidable deaths and suffering. We understand that you are unhappy with us. We know we are running out of time.

Give us a few more generations and I trust we will figure it out. And if we have not, it probably means an end to man on Earth.  Such an occasion would certainly be worthy of another type of celebration, an eternal festival for those who have survived our wrath.

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