Evaggelos Vallianatos: Humans are weapons of mass extinction
Native Americans say animals are our relatives. This great insight is complementary to that of Aristotle that animals are beautiful and perfect. They are the children of nature that does nothing in vain.
EVAGGELOS VALLIANATOS: In 2020, a UN report (Global Biodiversity Outlook 5) warned: “Humanity stands at a crossroads with regard to the legacy it leaves to future generations. Biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the pressures driving this decline are intensifying. None of the… Biodiversity Targets will be fully met…The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of the relationship between people and nature, and it reminds us all of the profound consequences to our own well-being and survival that can result from continued biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems”…
This natural world is absolutely essential for the birth, survival, and prosperity of human beings. Most humans know they need clean water, fertile land, and plenty of animals and plants, as well as healthy forests, rivers and seas and oceans… Yet animals, plants, trees, fish, coral reefs, other sea wildlife and plankton, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, and invisible microbes – are in trouble.
This is bad news because we are nothing without these forms of life. They give us the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. And yet we keep hunting, eating, shooting, cutting down, starving, and poisoning our natural benefactors. In addition, animals, trees, and other wildlife have no less rights for life than humans do. In fact, they are seniors to humans, having been on Earth much longer than us. Some of them, like Sequoias live for hundreds and thousands of years…
Ancient people like the Greeks and the Egyptians were well aware of their place in the natural world, which included the starry skies. They worshipped the Earth and the heavens, which they populated with gods… Unfortunately, the emergence of Christianity and Islam overthrew this Cosmos of people and the natural world, depended on each other.
The new worldview of the one-god religions was the domination of the natural world. Add technologies of exploitation and unchecked population growth to this concept of humans being in charge of animals and everything else, and the result is climate chaos and the wrecking of the boundless natural world…
The UN Chief, Antonio Guterres, is right the humans have become weapons for mass extinction. On December 6, 2022, Antonio Guterres addressed the Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. As usual, he spoke the truth about humanity’s war on nature. He warned the leaders of the world to stop treating the planet like a toilet. He reminded them that we are all facing a biodiversity apocalypse…
He said: “Nature is humanity’s best friend. Without nature, we have nothing. Nature is our life-support system. It is the source and sustainer of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the energy we use, the jobs and economic activity we count on, the species that enrich human life, and the landscapes and waterscapes we call home. And yet humanity seems hellbent on destruction. We are waging war on nature…
Worshipping the natural world like the ancient Greeks, is not likely to happen any time soon. It would put out of business the savage polluters-destroyers of nature and the purchased theologians, ecclesiastics, and preachers supporting them… An easier step in returning to some kind of balance with the natural world and civilization would be for prime ministers and presidents to take Guterres seriously. Wiping out biodiversity is slicing human existence. And with the rising of the climate dragon out of millennia of slumber, the conditions for humanity are becoming untenable…
To reverse Guterres’ correct conclusion – that humans are machines of extinction – we need a Renaissance for the revival of civilization. Humans must draw from their ancient traditions of respect and veneration of the natural world. As Native Americans say animals are our relatives. This great insight and understanding is complementary to that of Aristotle that animals are beautiful and perfect. They are the children of nature that does nothing in vain. SOURCE…
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