Talk 11: Humans cure Earth
No medicine
Earth, half awake, wondered what had happened to Grete. Just then the door opens. Earth raises her heavy head a little and saw Grete walk in. Who else? Grete has swollen eyes and puffed red face. She must have been crying. Earth knows that Grete is also a BHG, but the good type, kind-hearted, benevolent.
“ Hello Earth, you look miserable,” Grete blubbers with tearful eyes.
Earth hugs her tenderly and says, “I know how you are feeling. I saw you on TV.”
“I’m exhausted trying to convince my mighty fellow BHG gathered in that lofty skyscraper on the bank of Hudson River. They all sang the same I-ness song. Then I rushed to Davos in the Swiss Alps to plead with a few of the same joined by others, really fat ones, proudly parading their big bellies filled with all those good things you furnish all the time. Comfortably lodged, looking at the snowy slopes they smile. I’m sorry to give you more worries. Did Earth-Doctors come to treat you?” Grete asked.
“I do not think they will come again because they cannot find a good antidote. You remember the last one was fake. Even if they find one, the big-belly BHG will not allow them to administer it.”
Mantra to stop Earth’s death
“Please Earth tell me some mantra that would change my fellow BHG.” Grete pleads.
Looking tenderly into Grete’s eyes, Earth places her finger on her chin and spoke softly, “All humans, good and bad, act for their own sake. They want to stop climate warming because it affects their own comfort. Their concerns about nature and me are not genuine.”
“Why? I don’t understand. We were not like this before.” Grete sobs.
“What you say is correct. But we will talk about it later. First you see, my dear girl, I’m important because you need me. Obviously, if I perish humans will go with me; no one will be left to worry about anything.”
“Do you mean to say that this is going to happen?”
“The way things are evolving; this is exactly what is going to happen. Being tolerant by nature I’m not worried. I’ve been like this since I came into being.”
Who put us on the wrong path?
“Why did you not guide and put us on the right path?” Grete asked.
“Everything is interaction and reciprocal. As you have been saying all the time, it has been one way only. Humankind adopted a self-centred approach towards me and my nature. With time it has become human nature. Since then, many learned people made you believe and practice wrong ideas.”
Grete interrupts, “Yes, of course, I remember that Greek, … Aristotle, who proclaimed that “nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man.”
“Well, do I need tell you more? I can if you want…”
“Yes, yes. Please Earth,” Grete says.
“Two thousand years after Aristotle, even your Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus insisted that, ‘all things are made for the sake of man’. You see how greedy and mean humans are! Even their God spoke through the Bible and other sacred books commanding all humans to be fruitful and replenish the earth and subdue it. It specifically decrees that they should rule over the fish of the sea, and over fowls of the air, and over every living being that moves upon the Earth.”
Grete takes up the line and said, “More recently philosophers like Francis Bacon and Descartes famously declared that the world is made for man, animals are inferior to humans who are the lords and possessors of nature.”
Earth belogs to Grete
Grete chuckles, “Now I can imagine how you feel. My dear Earth, you don’t belong to you but to me!”
To console Grete, Earth laughs and says, “I’m sure you know that humankind still believes in the mantra that it can conquer and transform the “howling wilderness” of nature into pleasing and productive landscapes through cultivation, orderly fields, clearing forests, neat villages and cities, roads and rails. It thinks that in this way it can transform chaos and evil into order and good.”
“Unbelievable, how can they say that you are evil,” Grete protests. “No wonder humans did not think twice before launching their murderous onslaught on you. Now I realise why Alexis de Tocqueville credited the most powerful nation on earth: ‘It is the idea of destruction – of man’s axe in the American wilderness – that gives the landscape its touching loveliness’.”
