By Marco Lopez
Eastern knowledge teaches that existence swings like a pendulum between creation and destruction constantly. Our home, this world, has endured far graver fates than the current human-induced suffocation. Five times, before the world has bloomed and burst, with the annihilation of one form of life leading to the creation of another.
We made our way on this planet during the Cambrian Explosion, also called the Biological Big Bang. Human beings, like all other life, are products of this earth event. Just now, we are consciously destroying the force that gave life to us, and assigning terms to our time here, such as the Anthropocene.
This geological time marking our activity on Mother Earth has long been called the Holocene; right-minded individuals have pointed out, in fact, that the fallout during this time was brought on by our hands, our actions.
Some believe, even say animals are unconscious. I don’t know; to me, we appear like the insensible ones.
Our activities, however, will likely destroy everything around us before it reaches the safeguards we have and will continue to build. This will not prevent the fallout that will be the sixth mass extinction.
We live in a critical time, where we possess enough knowledge to foresee what’s coming, enough information to make decisions to mitigate against the fallout, enough human resources and technology to create a world where we address the climate crisis.
Lack of willpower is mankind’s current greatest deficiency. See, survival requires changing the fossil fuel-dependent world that has been created by Western states. Changing the system that has been created to facilitate the extraction of wealth from the most vulnerable countries.
Western eyes, perceive nature as separate from us. As tools or commodities to be used at our discretion. Unless we change our relationship with our voiceless brothers and sisters, with all the life we see around us, we ourselves will cease to exist.
This is the frontier, not necessarily chanting down the big fossil fuel companies, but trying our best to appeal to the humanity of those in positions of power. Reminding them that we are ultimately in the same boat. We have the option of regaining our humanity, or we will mark our end at the sixth – the Anthropocene.
Editor’s Note: This piece is an editorial, and the opinions expressed are those of the author, who is also the publisher of Climate Spotlight.
