It is July and the butterflies are active ...
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The "little miracle" is a minnow in a drop of water. As to how it found itself in that circumstance is a mystery but what an unexpected and delightful thing to see.
Nature is immensely creative. This Universe is extremely large, extremely ancient and extremely beautiful. The living world is ancient, complicated, perpetually active and perpetually beautiful.
Nature is also what has kept this planet in a condition suitable for human life and hospitable to civilization. Capitalism, on the other hand, has worked full time to destroy the planet and render this Eden into a hellishly inhospitable planet incompatible with the survival of civilization and humankind itself.
Would you sacrifice the future of humankind for the sake of your technologies, your luxuries, your conveniences, your lifestyle, your income and your wealth?
This is really a rhetorical question. What has become increasingly evident is that humankind (including God's own special children, the Americans) doesn't control its own destiny.
What this means is that you are going to lose your technologies, your luxuries, your conveniences, your lifestyle, your income and your wealth. Regardless of how selfish or desperate you might become as you attempt to save all of these things you will lose them all anyway.
Humankind has destroyed the Earth for the sake of an extremely temporary thing. After these temporary things are lost humankind will be left with nothing.
If humankind cannot survive without any of these things, humankind won't survive. Nature simply doesn't care whether the Homo sapiens survive or goes extinct. Nature owes no obligation to humankind ... no more so than Nature owed any obligation to our closest ancestors. Billions of species have already gone extinct. The loss of another primate species would constitute just another day on the Earth.
Humankind must decide between extinction and survival.
Actually, humankind has already decided.
There won't be any sacrifices on behalf of the planet's health and humankind's future survival.
Humans have already damaged the Earth sufficiently to guarantee the eradication of civilization and the extinction of humankind.
There is no happy ending to the human story.
But if you are in need of just-so happy ending stories and other delusional myths ... just watch CNBC. They make trashing the planet sound like a virtue.
David Mathews
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