Essay: Has Humanity Caused its Own Demise?

Of the Earth

By Raymond Greiner
QuailBellMagazine.com

Humanity can benefit from awareness of Earth’s influential evolutionary cycles and its spectrum of terrestrial life exhibiting ability to adjust and meld with the ever-changing biosphere. Geographic’s form the character of habitat designs dictating survival requirements. Equatorial, temperate and high latitudes impose precise directional criteria standards for day-to-day functions within given locations.        
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Reading the news daily discloses our species largely ignores environmental fragility applying minimal effort toward preservation. Cities are plagued with disarray crippled from lack of social amiability. Densely populated zones are mired in toxic life threatening conditions. Areas in China require citizens to reference cell phones to learn the air pollution index status to determine if a filtration mask is required on given days. Flint Michigan’s water source is so polluted it causes illness and death. Fracking for natural gas pollutes wells in rural zones causing gas leaks to penetrate drinking water.      

Industrial development and expansion is a major contributor to downside conditions to overall earthly life. Agriculture has become industrialized utilizing the infusion of chemicals to soil and crops driven to seek means to expand yields and fiscal profits from selected cultivated acreage. Chemical applications have proven to destroy soil organisms, which are vital to soil enrichment and its productive ability to produce quality organic foods. The drive for higher profits per acre causes these negative practices as they continue. These chemicals are killing pollinators by the millions, and plant based food production is severely hindered without pollination. Chemicals may appear to be a solution, but the reality is this perceived solution is destined to fail without sustainable pollination.

As our species treks forward priorities continue to emphasize war and the devastation and suffering it creates, as government’s contract major manufacturing companies to continue development of high tech weaponry design improvements to increase production of sophisticated killing devices offering employment to stimulate economic growth. The United States spends 54% of its annual budget on its military. The US atomic missile stockpile is now at 7500 and political rhetoric is speaking of increasing this number to influence economic growth, which has become a priority beyond sensibility. Weaponry production results in mass warfare stimulating the question: “Are we destined to succumb to our own inventiveness as we place emphasis on advanced technology directed toward development of death machinery as opposed to development of environmental and human preservation?” We are very dense in numbers and if our species expects to endure habitat preservation is paramount, and if we are capable of installing land rovers on Mars we surly can solve obvious negative environmental problematic impositions. Nuclear missiles contribute nothing to species longevity.

We regard ourselves as the superior earthly life form, yet our actions raises doubt compared to fellow species we share our planet with. The main reason wild earthly species have survived so long compared to humankind’s timeline is because they assimilate to Earth more efficiently without the massive war imposed ideology, which is solely a human endeavor.
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Often I receive rebuttal directed at my viewpoints citing bible quotes such as “revelations” and others as methods to justify the stupidity of war and mass killing of each other. I somehow am to believe this is our destiny and will not reverse because humanity is plagued with the ubiquity of hate and evil. It’s a handy excuse to allow vindication from observed realities of war, historically and currently. It is my belief we are capable of transcending the multiple negatives within our species because we are exactly the same as the wolf and hummingbird we are of the Earth.